.7 







. '^W^'. 



PROFESSOR ANDERSON'S WORKS. 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY; ok, The Religion of Our Forefa- 
thers. Containing all the Myths of the Eddae, carefully sys- 
tematized and interpreted. With an Introduction, Vocabulary, 
and Index. 47-3 pages, crown 8vo; cloth, $2.50; cloth, gilt edges, 
$3; half calf, $5. 

"Prof. Anderson's work is incomparably superior to the already 
existing books of this order. '"—Sa^ibner's Monthly. 

"We have never seen so complete a view of the religion of the 
Norsemen."— ^iS^io^^eca Sacra. 

"No such account of the old Scandinavian Mythology has 
hitherto been given in the English language. It is full, and eluci- 
dates the subject from all points of \iew."— Presbyterian Qtiar- 
terly and Princeton Review. 

"The exposition, analysis, and interpretation of the Norse 
Mythology leave nothing to be desired. The whole structure and 
framework of the system are here; and, in addition to this, co- 
pious literal translations from the Eddas and Sagas show the 
reader something of the literary form in which the system found 
permanent record. Occasionally entire songs or poems are pre- 
sented, and, at every point where they could be of service, illus- 
trative extracts accompany the elucidations of the text. 

" Prof. Anderson, indeed, has left little to be performed by 
future workers in the special field covered by his present work. 
* * His work is very nearly perfect."— A^j^^^eto/i's Journal. 

AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. A Historical 
Sketch of the Discovery of America by the Norsemen in the 
10th century; with an Appendix on the Historical, Literary and 
Scientific value of the Scandinavian Languages. $1.00. 

" The book is full of surprising statement, and will be read with 
something like wonderment."— iVo^es and Queries., London. 

VIKING TALES OF THE NORTH. Price $2.00. 

DEN NORSKE MAALSAG. Price $1.00. 

IN PREPARATION. 

THE ELDER EDDA; OB, Cub Old Nobthebn Geandmother. 
2 vols., crown 8vo. 

THE YOUNGER EDDA. 1 vol. 

For further notices see back part of this volume. 



America not Discovered by Columbus. 



AN HISTOEICAL SKETCH 



IN THE TENTH CENTURY. 

si 
By RASMUS B. ANDERSON, A.M., 

PKOFKSSOR OF THB SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES IN THK UNIVERSITY OF WISCONBIN ; HONOBARY 

UEMBEB OP THE ICELANDIC LITERARY SOCIETY ; AUTHOR OF " NORSE MYTHOLOGY," 

"VIKING TALE3 OF THK NORTH:" " DEN NORSKK MAALSAG," ETC. ETC. 



^V. 



WITH AN APPENDIX 

ON THE 

HISTORICAL, LINGUISTIC, LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC VALUE 
OP THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 



NEW AND IMPROVED EDITION. 



CHICAGO: 
S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY 
LONDON: TRttBNER & CO. 

187 7. 






X 



COPTRIGHT, 1874, 

By S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. 



KNIQHT & LEONARD, PRINTERS, CHIOAQO. 



PEEFACE. 



"TN preparing this sketch, the author has freely 
-^ made use of such material as he considered 
valuable for his purpose from the works of Torfseus, 
C. C. Kafn, J. T. Smith, N. L. Beamish, G. Gra- 
vier, B. F. De Costa, A. Davis, Washington Irving, 
R. M. Ballantyne, P. A. Munch, R. Keyser, and 
others, and he is under special obligations to Dr. 
S. H. Carpenter, of the University of Wisconsin, for 
valuable suggestions. 

This sketch does not claim to be without faults. 
The style may seem dull and heavy, but it is hoped 
that the reader will be generous in criticising an 
author who now makes his first appearance before 
the American public. The object of this sketch 
has been to present a readable and truthful narrative 
of the Norse discovery of America, to create some 
interest in the people, the literature, and the early 
institutions of Norway, and especially in Iceland, — 
that lonely and weird island, — the Ultima Thule 



PREFACE. 



of the Greek Philosophers; and of the good or ill 
performance of the task, a generous public must be 
the judge 



University of Wisconsin, 

June 18, 1874. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 



The Norsemen, and other Peoples, interested in 

THE Discovery of America, 35 

CHAPTER n. 
Norse Literature has been Neglected by the 

Learned Men of the Great Nations, - - 41 

CHAPTER in. 
Antiquity op America, 45 

CHAPTER IV. 
Phenician, Greek, Irish, and Welsh Claims, - - 47 

CHAPTER V. 
Who Were the Norsemen? 49 

CHAPTER VI. 
Iceland, 52 

CHAPTER VII. 
Greenland, 58 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Ships of the Norsemen, 61 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Sagas and Documents are Genuine, - - - 64 

CHAPTER X. 
Bjarne Herjulfson, 986, 68 

CHAPTER XL 
Leif Erikson, 1000, 71 

CHAPTER XII. 
Thorvald Erikson, 1003, 75 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Thorstein Erikson, 1005, 78 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Thorfinn Karlsefne and Gudrid, 1007, - - - 79 

CHAPTER XV. 
Other Expeditions by the Norsemen, - - - 84 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Discovery of America by Columbus, - - - - 85 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Conclusion, 93 

APPENDIX. 
The Scandinavian Languages, 95 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 



SINCE the first edition of this little book was 
published, the discovery of America has received 
much attention. The claims of the l^orsemen, the 
Irish, the Welsh, and even of the Chinese, have all 
been warmly advocated. 

In presenting this new edition of "America not 
discovered by Columbus," we desire to call the read- 
er's attention to some of the literature that has ap- 
peared since the publication of our volume. We pass 
over in silence all the newspaper and magazine arti- 
cles and reviews, confining ourselves to what has been 
put in book form. 

1. Immediately after the publication of our book, 
in 1874, appeared a very remarkable work, by Aaron 
Goodrich, entitled, " A History of the Character and 
Achievements of the so-called Christopher Columbus, 
with numerous Illustrations and an Appendix " {New 
York, D. Appleton & Co.). Goodrich pronounces 
Columbus a fraud, and denounces him as mean, selfish, 
perfidious and cruel. He has evidently made a very 
careful study of the life of Columbus, and we have 
looked in vain for a satisfactory refutation of his state- 



8 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

ments. In Mr. Goodrich's book will be found a brief 
but tolerably accurate sketch of the Norse discovery 
of this continent. 

2. In 1875 appeared the following books : 

{a) " The Island of Fire," by P. C. Headley. Its 
ninth chapter treats of the discovery of America by- 
the ]^or semen. 

{h) " Young Folks' History of the United States," 
by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Its fourth chap- 
ter treats of the Norse discovery. 

(c) "A Grammar School History of the United 
States," by John J. Anderson (New York). The first 
section gives a synopsis of the Norse discovery. 

{d) "Lectures delivered in America," by Charles 
Kingsley. The third lecture is upon the first discov- 
ery of America. 

{e) "Fusang, or the Discovery of America by 
Chinese Buddhist Priests, in the Fifth Century," by 
Charles G. Leland. This work recognizes, on page 
32, the claims of the Norsemen, but presents an older 
claim by the Chinese, showing that a Buddhist monk 
or missionary, named Hoei-shin, returned in the year 
499 A.D. from a long journey to the East. The 
country that Hoei-shin visited is claimed to be Old 
and }^ew Mexico, and was called by him Fusang. 
The monk had found in this new and strange country 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 9 

an abundance of the maguey plant, or great cactus, 
which he called fusang, after a Chinese plant slightly 
resembling it, and this name (Fusang) he applied to 
the country itself. Leland's book is well worth 
reading. 

(/) In July, 1875, was held, in Nancy, France, 
the first meeting of the Congres International des 
Americanistes, a society which has been organized for 
the sole purpose of thoroughly investigating the pre- 
Columbian history of the American continent. The 
Gompte rendu of this session has been published in 
two large octavo volumes, by Maisonneuve et Cie., 
Paris. In the first volume will be found many valua- 
ble papers on the discovery of America by the Pheni- 
cians, Chinese, Irish, Norsemen, "Welsh ; and on the 
relation of these discoveries to the transatlantic voy- 
ages by Columbus. The second meeting of this society 
will be held, September, 1877, in Luxembourg, and 
there can be no doubt that it will in course of time 
produce a unique library of papers and discussions on 
pre-Columbian America. We are glad to notice that 
the savans who assembled in Nancy in 1875 fully 
recognized the claims of the Norsemen.* 

*To this list might be added Bayard Taylor's "Egypt and Iceland;" 
Caton's "Summer in Norway;" Griffin's "My Danish Days;" and John 
S. C. Abbott's "Christopher Columbus;" in all of which the Norse claims 
are vindicated. The last is in part a reply to the above-mentioned worl? of 
Aaron QoodricU. 



10 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

3. In 1876 appeared : 

(a) " An American in Iceland," by Samuel Knee- 
land. Its fourteenth chapter is devoted to a presenta- 
tion and discussion of the ISTorse discovery of America. 

(h) " America discovered by the Welsh," by Benja- 
min F. Bowen (Lippincott, publisher). The voyages 
of the Norsemen, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
are set down, on page 23, as being too well authenti- 
cated to admit of any doubt, and the book gives an 
interesting and elaborate discussion of the Welsh dis- 
covery of America, in tlie year 1170, by Prince Madoc 
and his followers, in order, as the author says, "to 
assign them their rightful place in American history." 
And, indeed, these various pre-Columbian discoverers 
are gradually receiving recognition in American his- 
tory ! It used to be the custom to pass over these 
early visitors to our continent in utter silence or with 
a contemptuous fling at them, as though they were 
mere myths, created only for the purpose of tickling 
the vanity of the different nationalities. 

It gives us great pleasure to be able to state that 
none of the recent histories of the United States have 
neglected to call attention to the pre-Columbian dis- 
coverers. Mr. John Clark Eidpath writes the title- 
page of his work as follows : " A History of the 
United States of America, from the aboriginal times 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 11 

to the present day ; embracing an account of the Ab- 
origines ; the Norsemen in the New World ; the dis- 
coveries by the Spaniards, English, and French, etc. 
etc. ; " and part II of the work begins with a detailed 
account of the Norse discoveries. 

In William Cullen Bryant's large history of the 
United States, now being published, we find the fol- 
lowing very interesting title-page: "A Popular History 
of the United States, from the first discovery of the 
Western Hemisphere by the Northmen to the end of 
the First Century of the Union of the States;" and a 
large portion of the first volume of that great work is 
devoted to an elaborate account of the discovery of 
the American continent by the Norsemen, Irish, 
Welsh, etc. This is right, and therefore we approve 
it and are glad of it. "Truth crushed to earth 
will rise again," and in the growing recognition of 
the claims of the Norsemen to the honor of having 
discovered America in the tenth century is a beautiful 
illustration of the truth contained in this sentence. 

While the various writers here alluded to freely 
admit the fact that the Norsemen, as w^ell as others, 
discovered and explored parts of America long before 
Columbus, they are unwilling to believe that there is 
any historical connection between the discovery of the 
Norsemen and that of Columbus ; or, in other words. 



12 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

that Colnmbus profited in any way by the Norsemen's 
knowledge of America. 

This is all the more singular, since none of them 
even try to deny the statement made by Fernando 
Columbo,* his son, that he (Christopher Columbus) 
not only spent some time in Iceland, in 1477, but 
sailed three hundred miles beyond, which must have 
brought him nearly within sight of Greenland. "We 
are informed that he was an earnest student and the 
best geographer and map-maker of his day. He 
was a diligent reader of Aristotle, Seneca and Strabo. 
Why not also of Adam of Bremen, who in his vol- 
ume, published in the year 1076, gave an accurate 
and well authenticated account of Yinland (New 
England) ? 

Is it not fair to say that Columbus must have read 
Adam of Bremen's book, and that he in 1477 went to 
explore and reconnoitre the old northern route by way 
of Iceland, Greenland, Markland and Helluland to 
Yinland ? We must insist that it is, to say the least, 
highly probable that he had in some way obtained 
knowledge of the discoveries of the Norsemen in the 
western ocean, and that he thought their Yinland to 

The statement is found in Chapter iv of the biography, which the son 
of Christopher Columbus. Fernando, wrote of his father, and which was 
published in Venice in 1571. Its title is, "Vita dell' admiraglio Chrisophoro 
Columbo." 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 13 

be the eastern shores of Asia. But no matter what 
induced him to go to Iceland."^ We know positively 
that he went there and even three hundred miles 
beyond it. The last Norse voyage to America of 
which we have any account was in the year 1347, and 
is it possible, we ask, that Columbus could visit Ice- 
land only 130 years later and learn nothing of the 
famous Yinland the Good ? 

We firmly believe in evolution so far as the dis- 
covery of America is concerned. We believe that the 
voyages of the Phenicians and of the Greek Pytheas 
^/ were the germ that budded in the explorations of Irish 
Welshmen and Norsemen, and culminated in the dis- 
covery of America by Columbus. Columbus added 
the last link of the golden chain that was to unite the 
two continents. We believe that Columbus was a 
scholar, who industriously studied all books and manu- 
scripts that contained any information about voyages 
and discoveries ; that his searching mind sought out the 
writings of Adam of Bremen, that well-known historian 
who in the most unmistakable and emphatic language 
speaks of the ISTorse discovery of Yinland; that the 

♦The famous geographer Malte-Brun suggests, iu his Histoire de la 
G^ographie, ii, pp. 395, 499, that Columbus, when in Italy, had heard of 
the Norse discoveries beyond Iceland, for Rome was then the world's center, 
and all information of importance was sent there; and we know that Pope 
Paschal II appointed Erik Upsi Bishop of Viuland in the year 1112, and 
that Erik Upsi went personally to Vinland in 1121. 



14 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

information thus gathered induced him to make his 
voyage to Iceland. And thus we are able to explain 
the firm conviction that Columbus invariably ex- 
pressed in reference to land in the west ; thus we can 
account for the absolute certainty and singular firm- 
ness with which he talked of land across the ocean ; 
and thus we can account for his accurate knowledge of 
the breadth of the ocean. 

Many have objected that Columbus never enter- 
tained an idea of discovering a new world, but that he 
was in search of a western route to India. What of it? 
Why could not Columbus have supposed that the 
Yinland, which the Norsemen had found, and which 
Adam of Bremen wrote about, was the very India to 
which he wanted to find a western route? Grant that 
all he wanted to know was, whether land could be 
found by sailing westward, — if he ever had such an 
opinion he must certainly have gotten it confirmed in 
Iceland. The Norsemen had not discovered the Pa- 
cific Ocean, and Columbus might well have believed 
that the Norsemen had discovered India. 

If Columbus had learned of Yinland when he was 
in Iceland, why did he not sail farther north instead 
of going so far to the south that he reached the West 
In(iia Islands instead of New England? This question 
has frequently been urged, and we reply, that the 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 16 

Icelanders must have told him, as they state in 
their Sagas, that far to the south of Yinland was 
Irland-it-Mikla, or Great Ireland ; that this Great Ire- 
land extended certainly as far south as the present 
Florida, and hence his shortest and most pleasant 
route would be to sail about due-west from Spain. 
Granting that America had not yet been found, any 
South European navigator, who had examined the Old 
IS'orse Sagas, and wanted to re-discover the lands there- 
in described, would feel sure of reaching Irland-it-Mikla 
by taking about the same course as did Columbus. 

In presenting these arguments, we repeat a state- 
ment that we have made elsewhere, that we are not 
detracting in any way from the great and well-de- 
served fame of Columbus. "We are rather vindicat- 
ing him as a man of thorough scholarship, great 
research, good judgment, in short a man of extraor- 
dinary ability, by showing that his discovery of 
America was the fruit of patient and persevering 
study of all the geographical information within his 
reach, and not a matter of chance, baseless specula- 
tion, or as some would like to have it, inspiration. 

We believe he examined carefully the traditions 
found in Plato of an island Atlantis, that had been 
swallowed up by the waves; we believe he read 
what Dioduros says about Phenician merchants who 



16 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

were driven by storms out of their course and found 
a fertile land to the west of Africa ; we believe he 
had read Adam of Bremen, and that he could not 
rest satisfied, before he had undertaken that perilous 
voyage to Iceland and heard from the very lips of 
the Norsemen themselves, the sagas relating to Yin- 
land and Great Ireland. 

We neglected to mention in our first edition 
the two remarkable visitors to America, — Are Mar- 
son and Bjorn, the Champion of Breidavik; and we 
gave Gudleif Gudlaugson but a passing notice, for the 
reason that their voyages are in no really historical 
connection with the voyages of Leif and Thorvald 
Erikson and Thorfinn Karlsefne. The Landnamabok 
and Eyrbyggja Sagas give elaborate accounts of these 
adventurers, the substance of which is as follows : 

The powerful chieftain, Are Marson, of Reykjanes, 
in Iceland, was, in the year 983, driven to Great 
Ireland (the country around the Chesapeake Bay) by 
storms, and was there baptized. The first author of 
this account was his contemporary, Rafn, surnamed 
the Limerick-trader, he having long resided in Lim- 
erick, in Ireland. The illustrious Icelandic sage. Are 
Frode, the first compiler of Landnama, who was him- 
self a descendant in the fourth degree from Are Mar- 
son, states on this subject that his uncle, Thorkel 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 17 

Gellerson, (whose testimony he on another occasion 
declares to be worthy of all credit,) had been informed 
by Icelanders, who had their information from Thorhnn 
Sigurdson, jarl of Orkney, that Are had been recog- 
nized in Great Ireland, and could not get away from 
there, but was there held in great respect. This state- 
ment therefore shows that in those times (A. D. 983) 
there was an occasional intercourse between the w^est- 
ern part of Europe (the Orkneys and Ireland) and the 
Great Ireland or Whiteman's Land of America. The 
Saga (Landnamabok, Landtaking Book, Domesday 
Book) expressly states that Great Ireland lies to the 
west, in the sea, near to Yinland the Good, YI days' 
sailing west from Ireland ; and Professor Rafn w^as of 
the opinion that the figures YI have arisen through 
some mistake or carelessness of the transcriber of the 
original manuscript, which is now lost, and were er- 
roneously written for XX, XI, or perhaps XY, which 
would better correspond with the distance. The mis- 
take might easily have been caused by a blot or defect 
in the manuscript. 

It must have been in this same Great Ireland that 
Bjorn Asbrandson, surnamed the Champion of Breid- 
avik, spent the latter part of his life. He had been 
adopted into the celebrated band of Jomsborg war- 
riors, that Dr. G. W. Dasent describes in his " Yikings 



18 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

of the Baltic," under Palnatoke, and took part with 
them in the battle of Fyrisval, in Sweden. His illicit 
amatory connection with Thurid of Froda (River Frod) 
in Iceland, a sister of the powerful Snorre Gode, drew 
upon him the enmity and persecution of the latter, in 
consequence of which he found himself obliged to quit 
the country for ever, and in the year 999 he set sail 
from Iceland with a northeast wind. 
'• Gudleif Gndlaugson, brother of Thoriinn, the an- 
cestor of the celebrated historian, Snorre Sturleson, 
had, as related in Chapter I of this volume, made a 
trading voyage to Dublin, in Ireland; but when he 
left that place again, with the intention of sailing 
round Ireland and returning to Iceland, he met with 
long-continuing northeasterly winds, which drove him 
far to the southwest in the ocean, and late in the 
summer he and his company came at last to an ex- 
tensive country, but they knew not what country it 
was. On their landing, a crowd of the natives, several 
hundreds in number, came against them, and laid 
hands on them, and bound them. They did not know 
anybody in the crowd, but it seemed to them that 
their language resembled Irish. The natives now took 
counsel whether they should kill the strangers or make 
slaves of them. While they were deliberating, a large 
company approached, displaying a banner, close to 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 19 

which rode a man of distinguished appearance, who 
was far advanced in years, and had gray hair. The 
matter under deliberation was referred to his decision. 
He was the above-named Bjorn Asbrandson. He 
caused Gudleif to be brought before him, and, address- 
ing him in the I^orse language, he asked him whence 
he came. On his replying that he was an Icelander, 
Bjorn made many inquiries about his acquaintance in 
Iceland, particularly about his beloved Thurid of Frod 
Kiver, and her son Kjartan, supposed to be his own 
son, and who at that time was the proprietor of the 
estate of Frod River. In the meantime, the natives 
becoming impatient and demanding a decision, Bjorn 
selected twelve of his company as counselors, and took 
them aside with him, and some time afterward he 
went toward Gudleif and his companions and told 
them that the natives had left the matter to his de- 
cision. He thereupon gave them their liberty, and 
advised them, although the summer was already far 
advanced, to depart immediately, because the natives 
were not to be depended on, and were difficult to deal 
with, and, moreover, conceived that an infringement 
on their laws had been committed to their disadvan- 
tage. He gave them a gold ring for Thurid and a 
sword for Kjartan, and told them to charge his friends 
and relations not to come over to him, as he had now 



20 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

become old, and might daily expect that old age would 
get the better of him; that the country was large, 
having but few harbors, and that strangers must every- 
where expect a hostile reception. ' Gudleif and his 
company accordingly set sail again, and found their 
way back to Dublin, where they spent the winter ; but 
the next summer they repaired to Iceland, and de- 
livered the presents, and everybody was convinced 
that it was really Bjorn Asbrandson, the Champion of 
Breidavik, that they had met with in that far-off 
country. 

An American poet, G(eorge) E. O(tis), published 
in 1874, in Boston, a very pleasant poem based on the 
saga narrative of Bjorn Asbrandson. The name of the 
poem is " Thurid." The above narrative, taken from 
"Antiquitates Americanse," is merely a brief abstract 
of the sagas which, in the case of Bjorn, as the reader 
may easily imagine, is brimful of dramatic and poetic 
interest. The Landnamabok and the Eyrbyggja Saga 
are of vital importance to every one who would make 
a study of the discovery of America by the Irish, but 
as we expect at some future day to be able to give 
to the public a complete translation of all the old 
Norse sagas treating of voyages to the western con- 
tinent, we must pass on to another subject. 

Anent the Dighton Eock, we have had some corre- 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 21 

spondence with Elislia Slade, Esq., of Somerset, Bristol 

county, Massachusetts. Before giving his letters we 

will say, in general, that until sufficient proof of 

some other origin of the Newport Tower and the 

Dighton Rock inscriptions are given, we shall persist 

in claiming them as relics of the Norsemen.* Now 

please read the following letters: 

Somerset, Bristol County, Massachusetts, 
December 17, 1875. 

Dear Sir, — I take pleasure in forwarding to your 
address a stereoscopic view of the celebrated Dighton 
Rock, situated in Taunton River, at low water mark, 
three miles north of Somerset, on the eastern bank 
of the river. As you well know, the rock has been 
the subject of much learned discussion at various 
times since the landing of the Pilgrims. 

Geologically, Dighton Rock is a silicious sand- 
stone of the upper Silurian period, and, I think, 
belongs to the Helderberg group, stratified as you 
see in the picture, the stratifications at right angles 
to the face and parallel to the surface ; was probably 
deposited in still water; is a boulder and not in situ. 

I have carefully measured the rock, and the fol- 
lowing is the result of my work: 

The face of the rock, on which are the inscriptions, 

* We are fully aware that the Copenhagen runologists do not regard the 
Dighton Rock Inscription as a work of the Norsemen. But in the first place 
the writing is not claimed to be runic, but Roman. Prof. Rafn himself did 
not try to show more than two or three runic letters in it. And in the second 
place we are not aware that either Stephens or Worsaae have ever made any 
careful examination of the inscription. When they have made a thorough 
study of it and reported, we are willing to accept their decision on the subject. 



22 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

has an angle of 47° to the horizon, and the surface 
(not seen in the picture) as it slopes toward the shore 
is in the mean 25° to the horizon. 

The mean height of the rock on its face above 
the ground is 1,293 meters. 

Its mean length on its surface is 1,768 meters. 

Its mean width is 3,384 meters. 

Its contents above ground is 3,871 cubic meters. 

Its weight is 9,071,023 kilogrammes. 

In viewing the rock, you are looking in a south- 
easterly direction, or, perhaps, more nearly SS.E. by 
the compass, but the magnetic needle here has a 
variation of 11° 03' west of north. 

The rock is almost covered with water at high 
tide, and can only be seen to advantage at low tide. 

The inscriptions on the rock are from one-eighth 
to three-eighths of an inch deep. At the time it 
was photographed I made nearly all of the chalk 
marks myself, and no chalking was made where the 
cutting in the roch was not j^lainly visihle to the eye^ 
and many marhings ])artly obscure were not touched^ 
thus giving the roch the benefit of all possible douht. 

Captain A. M. Harrison, in charge of the United 
States Coast Survey, engaged in work on Taunton 
River, was present when the photograph was taken, 
and he is engaged upon a history of the Norsemen's 
discovery of America, in connection with Dighton 
Eock, by request of the United States government. 
His report, when completed, will be a valuable 
work. I am, my dear sir, very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, Elisha Slade. 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 23 

It has so frequently been claimed that the inscrip- 
tions on Dighton Kock are nothing but " Indian 
scrawls," hence we WTote to Mr. Slade, asking him 
whether they could, in his opinion, have been made 
with stone implements. Here is his answer: 

Somerset, Bristol County, Massachusetts, 
March 13, 1876. 
Dear Sir, — You ask my opinion as to the instru- 
ments used in cutting the inscriptions on Dighton 
Eock. I think they were iron implements, and 
that they were in the )iands of a skilled mechanic — 
a JS'orseman worthy of the name. I do not know 
that my opinion on this question is of any conse- 
quence, still I have seen work undoubtedly performed 
by an aboriginal American with flint and stone tools, 
but the characters were not nicely edged, as these 
are. I cannot believe they were made by the lazy 
Indian of Schoolcraft. 

I have a decided interest in the JSTorsemen's visit 
to New England, for Thorfinn must have been well 
acquainted with Somerset, my native town. He 
must have seen Taunton Eiver as I see it, with 
Mount Hope and JSTarragansett bay, and seen the 
same sun rise over the same hills and set behind 
fhe same ridge 865 years ago. It is not impossible 
that Snorre was born in Somerset. 

Ever truly yours, 

Elisha Slade. 



24 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

In reference to this curious rock we will now 
only refer the reader to Chapter XIY of this book. 

From Joseph Story Fay, Esq., of Wood's Holl, 
Massachusetts, we have received the following very 
interesting paper on "The Track of the Norsemen," 
which we recommend to the careful perusal of our 
readers. Before presenting it, however, we will re- 
mark that the name Hope is found in Thorfinn Karl- 
sefne's Saga, where we read : " Karlsefne sailed with 
his people into the mouth of the river (Taunton 
River), and they called the place Hop (Mount 
Hope)." Hope is from the Icelandic hojpa^ to recede, 
and signifies a bay or the mouth of a river. The 
description in the saga corresponds exactly with the 
present situation of Mount Hope Bay. Here is Mr. 
Fay's paper. (We publish it by permission of the 
author.) 

It is now well established that in the tenth cent- 
ury the Norsemen visited this country, and coasting 
down from Greenland, passed along Cape Cod, through 
Vineyard Sound to Narragansett Bay, where it is be- 
lieved they settled. In the neighborhood of Assonet 
and Dighton, inscriptions upon the rocks have been 
found, and traditions exist that there were others, 
which have been destroyed. The name of Mount 
Hope is supposed to have been given to the Indians 
by them, and it is a little curious that those antiquaries 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 26 

who have tried to identify the names in J^arragansett 
Bay with the Norsemen did not look elsewhere on 
their route. 

The Rev. Isaac Taylor, the author of a work 
published by Macmillan & Co., of London, entitled 
" Words and Places," dilates upon the tenacity with 
which the names of places adhere to them, " throwing 
light upon history when other records are in doubt." 
He shows the progress and extent of the Celtic, Nor- 
wegian and Saxon migration over Europe, by the 
names and terminals which still exist over that conti- 
nent and even on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, 
and says, ''the knowledge of the history and migra- 
tions of such tribes must be recovered from the study 
of the names of the* places they once inhabited, but 
which now know them no more, from the names of 
the hills which they fortified, of the rivers by which 
they dwelt, of the distant mountains upon which they 
gazed." He says, "In the Shetlands, every local name 
without exception is Norwegian. The names of the 

farms end in seter or ster, and the hills are 

called hoy and holl ; " and yet he also says, 

" the name of Greenland is the only one left to remind 
us of the Scandinavian settlements which were made 
in America in the tenth century." Would the autlioi* 
have made this exception to his axiom as to the dura- 
bility of names, had he remembered that the Norse- 
men called the southern coast of Massachusetts Yin- 
land, and then had seen that we still have " Martin's " 
or "Martha's Yineyard ?" Had he sighted Cape Cod 
3 



26 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

and entered Vineyard Sound as the i^orsemen did, in 
rounding Monomoy Point, the southeast extremity of 
the cape, he would have seen on his right a high 
sandy hill, on or near which is the light-house, over- 
looking a land-locked anchorage on the inside called 
Powder Hole ; a score or more of miles farther along, 
across the sound, on his left, he would have seen the 
hills now called Oak Bluffs and the Highlands, and 
under their lee a deep bay and roadstead long known 
as Holmes' Hole, unfortunately changed to Vineyard 
Haven ; crossing over to the mainland again, a little 
farther west, he would have come to the bold but 
prettily rounded hills forming the southwestern ex- 
tremity of the cape, and behind them the sheltered 
and picturesque harbor of Wood's Hole. 

Proceeding thence toward Narragansett Bay, 
along the south coast of Naushon, prominent hills on 
the west end of that island slope down to a roadstead 
for small craft, and a passage through to Buzzard's 
Bay, called Kobinson's Hole; the next island is 
Basque ; and between its high hills and those of 
ISTashawena is a passage called Quick's Hole. Now 
these several localities are unlike each other except 
that all have hills in their vicinity, serving as distin- 
guishing landmarks. And why is not the word hole 
as applied to them a corruption of the Norwegian 
word holl, meaning hill ? The descriptive term hole 
is not applicable to any of them, but the word holl is 
to the adjacent hills, while there is little else in com- 
mon between them. The localities now called Quick's 



PKEFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 27 

and Robinson's Hole are passages between Elizabeth 
Islands; Wood's Hole is a passage and a harbor; 
Holmes' Hole, now known as Yinejard Haven, is a 
deep bay or anchorage; and Powder Hole was for- 
merly a capacious roadstead, now nearly filled with 
sand. 

It may seem to militate with the theory advanced, 
that south of Powder Hole or Monomoy Point is a 
locality called on the chart Butler's Hole, which lies 
in the course from Handkerchief Shoal to Pollock 
Rip, where there is now^ not only no hill but no land. 
But it is to be considered that almost within the 
memory of man there was land in that vicinity, which 
has been washed away by the same strong and eccen- 
tric current that has nearly filled np Powder Hole 
harbor and made it a sand-flat, and which still casts 
up on the shore large roots and remains of trees. 
With this in mind it is not wild to suppose that 
Butler's Hole marks a spot where once was an island 
w^ith a prominent hill, which the sea kings called a 
holl, and which has succumbed to the powerful abra- 
sion of the tides which have moved Pollock Rip many 
yards to the eastward, and w^hich every year make and 
unmake shoals in the vicinity of J^antucket and Cape 
Cod. 

It would seem a matter of course that the IS^orse- 
men, after their long and perhaps rough voyages, 
when once arrived in the sheltered waters and harbors 
of Vineyard Sound should have become familiar with 
them, and should have lingered there to recruit and 



28 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

refit, before proceeding westward ; or on their return, 
to have waited there to gather up resources before 
venturing out on the open ocean. Indeed, it is re- 
corded in their sagas that thej brought off boat loads 
of grapes from those pleasant shores. What more 
probable than that they cultivated friendly relations 
with the natives, and in coming to an understanding 
with them on subjects in common, should have told 
them the Norwegian terms for the hills and headlands 
of their coast, and that the Indians, in the paucity of 
their own language, should have adopted the appella- 
tive holl, which they were told signified hill, so impor- 
tant as a landmark to these wandering sea kings! 
Why may not the I^orsemen have called them so, 
until the natives adopted the same title, and handed it 
down to the English explorers under Bartholomew 
Gosnold, who gave their own patronymics to those 
several holls, or holes, as now called ? The statement 
of " the oldest inhabitant " of Wood's Hole, on being 
asked where the word hole came from, is, that he 
" always understood that it came from the Indians." 

There being no harbor on the shores of Martha's 
Yineyard island west of Holmes' Hole, the voyagers 
would naturally follow the north shore of the sound 
and become familiar with the Elizabeth Islands, and 
be more likely to give names to the localities on that 
side than on the other. Between Wood's Hole and 
Holmes' Hole the sound is narrowest, and they would 
be apt to frequent either harbor as the winds and tide 
might make it safe or convenient for them. 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 29 

It seems to confirm the views here advanced that 
in no other part of this continent or of the world, 
where the English have settled, is to be commonly 
found the local name of hole, and yet here in a dis- 
tance of sixty miles, the thoroughfare of these bold 
navigators, there are no less than five such still extant. 
How can it be explained except because it is "the 
track of the Norsemen"? It is not natural or proba- 
ble, w^ith their imperfect means of navigation, that 
they should have passed from Greenland to Narragan- 
sett Bay, leaving distinct traces in each, and yet to 
have ignored the whole intervening space, and not to 
have lingered awhile on the shores where they found 
grapes by the boat load, and which must have been as 
fair and pleasant in those days as they are now. It is 
to be hoped that at least our people will not be in 
haste to wipe out the local names of Yineyard Sound, 
when it is so likely that they are the oldest on the 
continent, and give to Massachusetts a priority of 
discovery and settlement over her sister States. Only 
let us correct the spelling, and give proper significance 
to them by calling the places now named Hole by the 
appropriate title of Holl. 

Before closing this preface we wish to add a few 
facts about the plans of the distinguished violinist 
Ole Bull in reference to a monument in honor of 
the Norse discoverers of America. 

At the close of a complimentary reception given 
to the distinguished artist in the Music Hall, Boston, 



30 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

Massachusetts, on the 8th of December, 1876, the 
Rev. Edward Everett Hale rose in his place on the 
floor and said* he supposed it was known to every 
person present that the distinguished artist had spent 
almost the whole of his active life in knotting those 
ties which connected his country with ours. It was 
hoped that in some future time there would be 
erected a physical memorial to the early discoverers 
of whom he had spoken. It was the wish of those 
about him [Mr. Hale], at whose request he spoke, 
that Boston should not be behind in any expression 
of gratitude to him [Ole Bull] for his work, as 
well as in expressing interest in our I^^orse ancestors. 
He was sure he expressed the sentiment, not only of 
the audience, but of all ]^ew England, when he 
spoke of the interest with which he regarded his 
countrymen, whom they regarded as almost theirs. 
He remembered, although it was nearly forty years 
ago, when much such an audience as he saw 
about him cheered and applauded Edward Everett, 
when the early discoveries had just been made, and 
when in one of the last of his public poems he 
expressed the wish that the great discoveries of Thor- 
vald might be commemorated by Thorvald's great 
descendant, the Northern artist Thorwaldsen. The 

*From report in Boston daily -'Advertiser." 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 31 

last words of that poem as they died upon the ear 

were : 

Thorvald shall live for aye in Thorwaldsen. 

He [the speaker] thought it was a misfortune for 
New England that the great Northern artist died 
before he could accomplish this wish. But New 
Englanders had never forgotten it, and had never 
forgotten their Norse ancestors. It was an enter- 
prise which ought to engage Massachusetts men — 
the preservation of a physical memorial of Thorvald, 
Leif and Thorfinn; and he suggested that the com- 
mittee which had arranged the meeting should be- 
come a committee of New England, in conjunction 
with Mr. Appleton, to take this matter in special 
charge. Mr. Hale put a motion to this effect, and 
it was carried, and the committee constituted. 

The committee of the Norsemen Memorial includes 
the highest civic officers of Boston and Massachusetts, 
and so many men renowned throughout the world in 
science, in letters, and in art, that we cannot refrain 
from ornamenting our pages with their names. They 
are, Thomas G. Appleton, Alexander H. Kice, Sam- 
uel C. Cobb, Wm. Gaston, Otis Norcross, Frederic 
W. Lincoln, Marshall P. Wilder, H. W. Paine, Henry 
A. Whitney, Franklin Haven, Geo. C. Eichardson, 



32 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

Alpheus Hardy, Jos. B. Glover, John "W. Candler, 
E. H. Sampson, James R. Osgood, Oliver Ditson, 
Jas. H. Danforth, Curtis Guild, W. W. Clapp, Jerome 
Jones, George O. Carpenter, Clias. W. Wilder, Dexter 
Smith, Wm. Emerson Baker, James W. Bartlett, Jos. 
"W. Bobbins, Ole Bull, John G. Whittier, E. JN". Hors- 
ford, O. W. Holmes, J. E. Lowell, James T. Fields, 
Chas. W. Eliot, G. W. Blagden, Edward E. Hale, 
B. C. Waterston, William B. Bogers, John D. Bun- 
kle, Ezra Farnswortli, Charles M. Clapp, Joseph Bur- 
nett, John F. Spaulding, Henry B. Beed, W. A. 
Simmons, Wm. H. Baldwin, Fercival L. Everett, A. 
B. Underwood, Thomas Sherwin, Benjamin Kimball, 
Moses H. Sargent, W. B. Sears, J. Watson Taylor, 
Francis L. Hills, secretary. 

This committee is. 

First, To take measures to erect a monument in 
honor of the l^orsemen who first discovered the Con- 
tinent of America, about a.d. 1000. 

Second, For the protection of the Dighton Bock, 
now in Taunton Biver. 

The committee issued, January 12, 1877, a cir- 
cular, of which the following, relating to the Dighton 
Bock, is an extract : 

The origin of the inscriptions cut on this rock 
have been, for several centuries, the study of histo- 



PKEFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 33 

rians. Professor Rafn, and others, of the Royal 
Society of Northern Antiquaries, of Copenhagen, 
Denmark, were so decided in their belief that the 
Dighton Rock was inscribed by the Norsemen, that 
Ole Bull requested Neils Arnzen to purchase it for 
that society, of which the King of Denmark is the 
president. This committee regard the Dighton Rock, 
whatever its origin, as a valuable historic relic of 
American antiquity, and have taken measures to 
obtain the title to it, in order to protect and remove 
it to Boston. They invite the deductions of all 
historic researchers as to the authenticity of these 
inscriptions.^ 

Thus it will be seen that the Boston committee 
wdll provide for a monument in honor of the Norse 
discoverers and for the preservation of Dighton Rock, 
and w^e are informed that a handsome sum of money 
has already been raised for these purposes. At all 
events, it is now certain that Ole Bull's long cher- 
ished plans will be realized ; and the people of Boston 
are doing themselves and their great city great credit 
in reviving and perpetuating the memory of those 

*An impression of the Dighton Rock inscriptions, taken in 1790, is 
preserved in Harvard University. Drawings made in 1680 can be found in 
the '■'Antiguitates Amencance.'''' This work records the inscriptions as Norse, 
and describes it as conforming to Icelandic Sagas account of " Thorfinn's 
Expedition to Viuland" (Massachusetts). 

[Copies of the photograph of Dighton Rock, taken in 1876 by order 
of the special agent of the United States government, may be obtained at 
the office of the secretary of the committee, No. 13 West street, Boston.] 



34: PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 

who first of all Christians planted their feet on 
the soil of Massachusetts, and built the first cabins 
(Leif's Booths) in New England. 

In sending out this second edition of our book 
we may be pardoned for again pleading the cause 
of the Norsemen and hoping that the time may 
soon come when the names of Leif Erikson, Bjarne 
Herjulfson, Thorvald Erikson (who, by the way, has 
recently been immortalized in Longfellow's " Skele- 
ton in Armor"), Thorfinn Karlsefne, Gudrid, Erik 
Upsi, Are Marson, Bjorn Asbrandson (the champion 
of Breidavik) and Gudleif Gudlaugson shall have 
become household words in every house and hamlet 
in these United States. Let every child learn the 
stories about the Norse discoverers of Yin! and the 
Good. 

University of Wisconsin, 

Madison, Wis., April 3, 1877. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE NORSEMEN, AND OTHER PEOPLES, INTERESTED 
IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

r I iHE object of the following pages is to present 
-*- the reader with a brief account of the discovery 
of early voyages to and settlements in the Western 
Continent by the Norsemen, and to prove that Co- 
lumbus must have had knowledge of this discovery 
by the Norsemen before he started to find America ; 
and the author will not be surprised, if, in these 
pages, he should happen to throw out some thoughts 
which will conflict with the reader's previously- 
formed convictions about matters and things gen- 
erally, and about historical facts especially. 

The interest manifested by the reader of history 
is always greater the nearer the history which he 
reads is connected with his own country or with 
his own ancestors. 

The American student, on the one hand, loves 
to dwell upon the pages of American history. He 



36 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

admires the resolution, the fortitude and persever- 
ance of the Pilgrim Fathers as they passed through 
their varied scenes of hardship and adversity when 
they made their first settlement upon our New 
England shores; and his whole soul is filled with 
transporting emotions of delight or sympathy as he 
reads the thrilling incidents of the sufferings and 
the victories of his countrymen who fought for his 
as well as for their own freedom during the Revolu- 
tionary war. 

The Norse student, on the other hand, takes 
special pleasure in perusing the old Sagas and Ed- 
das, and following the Yikings on their daring but 
victorious expeditions through European waters ; and 
he draws inspiration from those beautiful and poet- 
ical ancient myths and stories about Odin, Thor, 
Baldur, Loke, the Giant Ymer, Ragnarok, Yg- 
drasil, and that innumerable host of godlike heroes 
that illuminate the pages of his people's ancient 
history, and glitter like brilliant diamonds in the 
dust and darkness of bygone ages. 

The subject to which your attention is invited, 
the Discovery of America^ is, if properly presented, 
of equal interest to Americans and Norsemen. For 
those who are born and brought up on the fertile 
soil of Columbia, under the shady branches of the 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 87 

noble tree of American liberty, where the banner 
of progress and education is unfurled to the breeze, 
must naturally feel a deep interest in whatever 
facts may be presented in relation to the first dis- 
covery and early settlement of this their native land; 
while those who first saw the sunlight beaming 
among the rugged, snow-capped mountains of old 
Norway, and can still feel any of the heroic blood 
of their dauntless forefathers course its way through 
their veins, must, as a matter of course, feel an 
equally deep interest in learning that their own 
ancestors, the intrepid Norsemen, were the first pale- 
faced men who planted their feet on this gem of the 
ocean, and an interest, too, I dare say, in having 
the claims of their native country to this honor 
vindicated. 

The subject is not without special interest to the 
Germans^ as it will appear in the course of this 
sketch that a German,^ who accompanied the Norse- 
men on their first expedition to this Western World, 
is intimately connected with the first name of this 
country; and there is no doubt that a German,t 
through his writings about the Norsemen, was the 
means of bringing to Columbus valuable information 
about America. 

The Welsh also have an interest in this subject; 

* Tyrtcer. t Adam of Bremen. 



38 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

for it is generally believed, and not without reason, 
that their ancestors, under the leadership of Madoc, 
made a settlement in this country about the year 
1170 ; thus, although they were 170 years later 
than the ISTorsemen in making the discovery, they 
were still 322 years ahead of Columbus, and E"orse- 
men, therefore, claim in this question, Welshmen's 
sympathies against Columbus. 

[i We might enlist the interest of Irishmen, too, in 
the presentation of this subject; for, in the year 
1029, (according to an account in the Eyrbyggja 
Saga, Chapter 64,) a Norse navigator, by name 
GuDLEiF GuDLAUGSoN, undcrtook a voyage to Dub- 
lin, and on leaving Ireland again he intended to 
sail to Iceland ; but he met with northeast winds 
and was driven far to the west and southwest in 
the sea, where no land was to be seen. It was 
already late in the summer, and Gudleif, with his 
party, made many prayers that they might escape 
from the sea. And it came to pass, says the Saga, 
that they saw land, but they knew not what land 
it was. Then they resolved to sail to the land, for 
they were weary with contending longer with the 
violence of the sea. They found there a good har- 
bor, and when they had been a short time on shore, 
there came some people to them. They knew none 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 39 

of the people, but it " rather appeared to them that 
they sjpoke Irish^ ' 

This portion of America, supposed to be situated 
south of the Chesapeake Bay, including North and 
South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida, is in 
the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne, chapter 13, called 
" Irland-it-MiMa^'^ that is, Great Ireland. It is 
claimed that the name, Great Ireland^ arose from 
the fact that the country had been colonized, long 
before Gudlaugsoii^ s visit, by the Irish, and that, 
they coming from their own green island to a vast 
continent possessing many of the fertile qualities of 
their own native soil, the appellation was natural and 
appropriate. There is nothing improbable in this 
conclusion; for the Irish, who visited and inhabited 
Iceland toward the close of the eighth century, to 
accomplish which they had to traverse a stormy ocean 
to the extent of eight hundred miles — who, as early 
as 725, were found upon the Faroe Isles — and whose 
voyages between Ireland and Iceland, in the tenth 
century, were of ordinary occurrence — a people so 
familiar with the sea were certainly capable of making 
a voyage across the Atlantic ocean. "■ 
'' I cannot here enter upon any further discussion 
of the claims of the Irish, but you observe that this 
subject of discovering America cannot be treated 



4:0 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

exhaustively without bringing back to tlie mind 

fond recollections of the Emerald Isle, which was 

once the School of Western Europe, and her brave 

sons 

*' Inclyta gens hominuiu, milite, pace, fide," 

as Bishop Donatus somewhere has it. 



CHAPTER II. 



NORSE LITERATURE HAS BEEN NEGLECTED BY THE 
LEARNED MEN OF THE GREAT NATIONS. 

TT^NLIGHTENED men all over the world are 
-^-^ watching, with astonishment and admiration, 
the New World, from which great revolutions have 
proceeded, and in which great problems in human 
government, human progress and enterprise, are yet 
to be worked out and demonstrated. 

People are everywhere eagerly observing every 
event that takes place in America, making it the 
subject of the most careful scrutiny, and the results, 
wonderful as they are, everywhere awaken the most 
intense interest. If you travel in England, in Ger- 
many, in ]^orway, or in any of the North-European 
countries, it is interesting to observe how^ familiar 
the common people are with matters and things per- 
taining to America. They not only know America 
better than they know their border countries, but 
there also are found not a few who keep themselves 
better posted on the aifairs of America tlian on 
those of their own country. 



,42 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

V 

Until recently, it has generally been supposed 

that America was wholly unknown to European na- 
tions previous to the time of Columbus; but investi- 
gations by learned men have made it certain, beyond 
the shadow of a doubt, that the Europeans did have 
knowledge of this country long before the time of 
Columbus, and it has even been claimed, on quite 
plausible grounds, that some of the nations living 
here at the time of Columbus' discovery of this con- 
tinent were descendants of Europeans. 

As yet but few scholars have turned their atten- 
tion to the IN^orth of Europe in relation to this 
subject, and hence the light which this extreme 
portion of the globe could give has hitherto been, 
in a great measure, neglected by the learned men 
of the great nations ; and yet the antiquities of the 
North furnish a series of incontestable evidence that 
the coast of North America was discovered in the 
latter part of the tenth century, immediately after 
the discovery of Greenland by the Norsemen ; fur- 
thermore, that this same coast was visited repeatedly 
by the Norsemen in the eleventh century; further- 
more, that it was visited by them in the twelfth 
century; nay, also, that it was found again by them 
in the thirteenth century, and revisited in the four- 
teenth century. But even this is not all. These 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 43 

Northern antiquities also show that Christianity had 
been introduced in America, not only among the 
Norsemen, who formed a settlement here, bnt also 
among the aborigines, or native population, that the 
Norsemen found here. y' 

The learned men of the North are not to blame 
that this matter has not previously received due 
attention, for Torfj^us published an account thereof 
as early as the year 1705, and besides him Suhm 
and ScHCENiNG and Lagerbring and Wormskjold 
and ScHRCEDER, to say nothing of many others, 
have all presented the main facts in their historical 
works. But other nations paid no attention to all 
this. Not until 1837, when the celebrated Pro- 
fessor Kafn, through the laudable enterprise of the 
Koyal Society of Northern Antiquities, published 
his learned, interesting and important work,* could 
scholars outside of Scandinavia be induced to examine 
the claims of the Norsemen. Professor Kafn suc- 
ceeded, and he has perhaps done more than any 
other one man to call the attention of other nations 
to the importance of studying the Old Norse lite- 
rature. Thus it is that scholars of other nations 
recently have begun to direct their attention to 
Northern Antiquities, Northern Languages and His- 

* Antiquitates Americanse, Hafnise, 1837. 



44 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

tory. Germany and England, and I would like to 
add America, are now beginning to realize how 
much valuable material is to be found in these 
sources for elucidating the history and institutions 
of other contemporary nations ; and especially do the 
early Sagas of the JSTorth throw much important light 
on the character of English and German institutions 
during the middle ages. The English and Germans 
are translating the Sagas as fast as they can. Pro- 
fessors KoNRAD Maurer and Th. Moebius are doing 
excellent work at their respective Universities in 
Germany ; Oxford and Cambridge in England have 
each an Icelandic Professor, and several American 
Universities give instruction in the Korthern lan- 
guages. 

It is indeed an encouraging fact that these great 
nations are gradually becoming conscious of the 
importance of studying the E^orthern languages and 
literature, and we may safely hope that the time is 
not far distant when the Norsemen will be recog- 
nized in their right social, political and literary 
character, and at the same time as navigators assume 
their true position in the pre-Columbian discovery 
of America. 



CHAPTER III 



ANTIQUITY OF AMERICA. 

T3EF0IIE the plains of Europe rose above the 
-*— ^ primeval seas, the continent of America, accord- 
ing to Louis Agassiz, emerged from the watery 
waste that encircled the whole globe and became 
the scene of animal life. Hence the so-called IS'ew 
World is in reality the Old, and Agassiz gives 
abundant proof of its hoary age. 

But who is able even to conjecture at what 
period it became the abode of man? Down to the 
close of the tenth century its written history is 
vague and uncertain. We can find traces of a rude 
civilization that suggest a very high antiquity. We 
can show mounds, monuments, and inscriptions, that 
point to periods, the contemplation of which would 
make Chronos himself grow giddy ; yet among all 
these great and often impressive memorials there 
is no monument, mound, or inscription, that solves 
satisfactorily the mystery of their origin. There are 
but few traditions even to aid us in our researches. 



46 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

and we can only infer that age after age nations 
and tribes have continued to rise into greatness 
and then decline and fall, and that barbarism and 
a rude culture have held alternate sway.* 

* Compare De Costa, page 11. 



CHAPTER IT, 



PHENICIAN, GREEK, IRISH AND WELSH CLAIMS. 

"TN early times the Atlantic Ocean, like all other 
-^ things without known bounds, was viewed by 
man with mixed feelings of fear and awe. It was 
usually called the Sea of Darkness. 

The Phenician, and especially Tyrian voyages to 
the Western Continent, in early times, have been 
warml}^ advocated ; and it is more than probable that 
the original inhabitants of the American continent 
crossed the Atlantic instead of piercing the icy 
regions of the north and coming by the way of 
Behring's Strait. From the Canaries, which were 
discovered and colonized by the Phenicians, it is a 
short voyage to America, and the bold sailors of 
the Mediterranean, after touching at these islands, 
could easily and safely be wafted to the western 
shore. 

That the Greek philosopher, Pytheas, whose dis- 
coveries about the different length of the days in 
various climates appeared so astonishing to the other 



4:8 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

philosophers of his age, traversed the Atlantic Ocean 
about 340 years before Christ, can scarcely be doubted. 
He certainly discovered Thule ^ (Iceland), and deter- 
mined its latitude, and we may at least say that by 
this discovery he opened the way to America foi* 
the Norsemen. 

Claims have been made, as I have already shown, 
both by the Irish and by tlie Welsh, that they 
crossed the Atlantic and found America before 
Columbus, but it is not my purpose to comment 
upon these claims in this short sketch. Much 
learned discussion has been devoted to the subject, 
but the early history of the American continent is 
still, to a great extent, veiled in mystery, and not 
until near the close of the tenth century of the 
present era can we point, with absolute certainty, 
to a genuine transatlantic voyage. ^ 

* See Strabo's Geography, Book II, § 6. 



CHAPTER Y, 



WHO WERE THE NORSEMEN? 

/ 
1/ 

rr^HE first voyage to America, of which we have 
-^ any perfectly reliable account, was performed 
by the Norsemen. 

But who were the Norsemen? Permit me to 
answer this question briefly. 

The Norsemen were the descendants of a branch 
of the Teutonic race that, in early times, emigrated 
from Asia and traveled westward and northward, 
finally settling down in what is now the west cen- 
tral part of the kingdom of Norway. Their lan- 
guage was the Old Norse, which is still preserved 
and spoken in Iceland, and upon it are founded the 
modern Norse, Danish and Swedish languages. 

The ancient Norsemen were a bold and inde- 
pendent people. They were a free people. Their 
rulers were elected by the people in convention 
assembled, and all public matters of importance were 
decided in the assemblies, or open parliaments of 
the people. 

Abroad they became the most daring adven- 



50 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBtTS. 

turers. They made themselves known in every 
part of the civilized world by their daring as sol- 
diers and navigators. They spread themselves along 
the shores of Europe, making conquests and plant- 
ing colonies. 

In their conquering expeditions they subdued a 
large portion of England, wrested IsTormandy, the 
fairest province of France, from the French king, 
conquered a considerable portion of Belgium, and 
made extensive inroads into Spain. Under Robert 
Guiscard they made themselves masters of Sicily 
and lower Italy in the eleventh century, and main- 
tained their power there for a long time. During 
the Crusades they led the van of the chivalry of 
Europe in rescuing the Holy Sepulchre, and ruled 
over Antioch and Tiberias under Harald. They 
passed between the pillars of Hercules, they deso- 
lated the classic fields of Greece and penetrated the 
walls of Constantinople. 

Straying away into the distant east, from where 
they originally came, we find them laying the 
foundations of the Russian Empire, ' swinging their 
two-edged battle-axes in the streets of Constantino- 
ple, where they served as the leaders of the Greek 
Emperor's bod3^-guard, and the main support of his 
tottering throne. They carved their mystic runes 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 61 

upon the marble lion* in the harbor of Athens 
in commemoration of their conquest of this city. 
The old Norse Yikings sailed up the rivers Rhine, 
Schelde, the Seine and Loire, conquering Cologne 
and Aachen, where thej turned the emperor's palace 
into a stable, filling the heart of even the great 
Charlemagne with dismay. 

The rulers of England are descendants of the 
Norsemen. Ganger Rolf, known in English history 
by the name Rollo, a son of Harald Haarfagr's 
friend, Ragnvald Morejarl, invaded France in the 
year 912 and took possession of Normandy; and in 
1066, at the battle of Hastings, William the Con- 
queror, a great-grandson of Ganger Rolf, conquered 
England ; and it is proper to add, that from this con- 
quest the pride and glory of Great Britain descended. 

It is also a noticeable fact, that the most serious 
opposition that William the Conqueror met with 
came from colonists of his own race, who had set- 
tled in Northumbria. He wasted their lands with 
fire and sword, and drove them beyond the border; 
but still we find their energy, their perseverance 
and their speech existing in the north English and 
lowland Scotch dialects. 

* The marble lion upon which they carved their runes was afterward 
taken to Venice and erected at the entrance of the arsenal, where it may 
be seen at the present time. 



CHAPTER VI 



ICELAND. 



"OUT Europe did not set bounds to the voyages 
-*— ^ and enterprises of the Norsemen. In the year 
860 they discovered Iceland, and soon afterward (874) 
established upon this island a republic, which flour- 
ished four hundred years. The Icelandic republic 
furnishes the very best evidence of the independent 
spirit which characterized the Norsemen. 

Political circumstances in Norway urged many 
of the boldest and most independent people in the 
country to- seek an asylum of freedom. Harald 
HaarfactR {i. e. the Fair-haired) had determined to 
make himself monarch of all Norway. He was 
instigated to unite Norway under his scepter by 
the ambition of the fair and proud Pagna Adils- 
DATTEK (daughter), whom he loved and courted; 
but she declared that the man she married would 
have to be king of all Norway. Harald accepted 
the conditions; and after twelve years' hard fight- 
ing, during which time he neither cut nor combed 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 53 

his hair once,* in the year 872, at the battle of 
Hafersfjord, ISTorway became united into one king- 
dom, instead of being divided into thirty-one small 
republics, as had been the case before that time. 

Harald had subdued or slain the numerous leaders, 
and had passed a law abolishing all freehold tenure 
of property,f usurping it for the crown. To this 
the proud freemen of l^orway would not submit. 
Disdaining to yield their ancient independence and 
be degraded, they resolved to leave those lands and 
homes, which they could now scarcely call their own, 
and set out with their families and followers in quest 
of new seats. There were as great emigrations from 
Norway in those days as there are now. The Norse 
spirit of enterprise is a& old as their history. 

Whither then should they go, was the question. 

Some went to the Hebrides, others to the Orkney 
Isles ; some to the Shetland and Faroe Isles ; many 
went as Vikings to England, Scotland and France; 
but by far the greater number went to the more 
distant and therefore more secure Iceland, which 
had been discovered by the celebrated Norse Yiking 

* He made a pledge to Ragna that he would neither cut nor comb his 
hair until he had subjugated all Norway. 

t This Bo-called udal, [Icel, 6dal, Norse odel, allodium,] i. e. independent 
tenure of property, was given back to the Norsemen by King Hakon the 
Gtood in the year 935, and has never since been taken away from them. 



54 AMEKICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

Naddodd in 860, and called by him Snowland; re- 
discovered by Gardar, of Swedish extraction, in 864, 
after whom it was called Gardar's Holm (island), 
and visited by two Norsemen, Ingolf and Leif 
(Hjorleifr) in 870, by whom it was called Iceland. 
This emigration from Norway to Iceland began in 
the year 874, now more than a thousand years ago ; 
and thus this strange island was peopled — and in a 
few years peopled to a surprising extent. It was not 
long before it had upward of 50,000 inhabitants. 
You must bear in mind that this colonization was 
on an island in the cold North Sea, a little below 
the Arctic Circle. It was in a climate where grain 
refused to ripen, and where the people often were 
obliged to shake the snow oif the frozen hay before 
they could carry it. Fishing, the main support of 
the people, was often obstructed by ice from the 
polar regions filling their harbors, and the whole 
island presented a most melancholy aspect of desola- 
tion. But still the people continued to flock thither 
and become attached to the soil. They were sur- 
rounded the whole year by dreary ice-mountains, the 
glare of volcanic flames, and the roaring of geysers 
or boiling springs. Still they loved this wild coun- 
try, because they were free; and through the long 
winters, when the sun nearly or entirely disappeared 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVEJRED BY COLUMBUS. 65 

from above the horizon, and nothing but northern 
lights flickered over their heads, they seemed only 
the more thrown npon their intellectual resources, 
and passed the time in reciting the Eddas and Sagas 
of their ancestors. 

(/ Perhaps I ought to beg your pardon for dwelling 
so long upon the subject of Iceland ; but my apol- 
ogy is that, in the first place, Iceland is of itself an 
exceedingly interesting country ; and, in the next 
place, it is really the hinge upon which the door 
swings which opened America to Europe. This 
island had been visited by Pytheas 340 years before 
Christ ; and, according to the Irish monk Dicuu^rs, 
who wrote a geography in the year 825, it had been 
visited by some Irish priests in the summer of 795.* ^ 
It was the settlement of Iceland by the E"orsemen, 
and the constant voyages between this island and 
Norway, that led to the discovery, first of Greenland 
and then of America; and it is due to the high 
intellectual standing and fine historical taste of the 
Icelanders that records of these voyages were kept, 
first to instruct Columbus how to find America, and 
afterward to solve for us the mysteries concerning 
the discovery of this continent. 

Iceland is a small island, in the 65th deg. north 

*Vid. Dicuilus, De Meusura Orbis Terrae, ed. Latronne, p. 38. 



56 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

latitude, of about 1,800 geographical square miles. 
Its valleys are almost without verdure, and its 
mountains without trees. Still, it contains, even at 
the present time, no less than 70,000 inhabitants, 
who live a peaceable and contented life, still cling- 
ing to their ancient language, and studying foreign 
languages, science, philosophy, and history, as we do 
who live in milder and more favored climes, l^ow, 
as in olden times, the earth trembles in the throes 
of the earthquake, — the geysers still spout their 
scalding water, and the plain belches forth mud, — 
while the grand old jokul,"^ Mount Hekla, clad in 
white robes of eternal snow, brandishes aloft its 
volcanic torch, as if threatening to set the very 
heavens on fire. 

For ages Iceland was destined to become the sanc- 
tuary and preserver of the grand old literature of the 
North. Paganism prevailed there more than a cen- 
tury after the island became inhabited ; the old tra- 
ditions were cherished and committed to memory, 
and shortly after the introduction of Christianity 
the Old Norse literature was put in writing. 

The ancient literature and traditions of Iceland 
excel anything of their kind in Europe during the 
middle ages. The Icelandic poems have no parallel 

*Mouutaiu8 covered with perpetual snow are called -jdlvuls" in Iceland. 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 57 

in all the treasures of ancient literature. There are 
gigantic proportions about them, and great and over- 
whelming tragedies in them, which rival those ot 
Greece. The early literature of Iceland is now fast 
becoming recognized as equal to that of ancient 
Greece and Eome. 

The original Teutonic life lived longer and more 
independently in Norway, and especially in Iceland, 
than elsewhere, and had more favorable opportuni- 
ties to grow^ and mature ; and the Icelamdic literature 
is the full-blown flower of Teutonic heathendom. 
This Teutonic heathendom, with its beautiful and 
poetical mythology, was rooted out by superstitious 
priests in Germany, and the other countries inhab- 
ited by Teutonic peoples, before it had developed 
sufficiently to produce blossoms, excepting in Eng- 
land, where a kindred branch of the Gothic race 
rose to eminence in letters, and produced the Anglo- 
Saxon literature. 



CHAPTER VII. 



GREENLAND. 

"13 UT, as time passed on, the people of Iceland 
-^-^ felt a new impulse for colonizing new and 
strange lands, and the tide of emigration began to 
tend with irresistible force toward Greenland, in 
the west, which country also became settled in spite 
of its w^retched climate. 

The discovery of Greenland was a natural con- 
sequence of the settlement of Iceland, just as the 
discovery of America afterward was a natural con- 
sequence of the settlement of Greenland. Between 
the western part of Iceland and the eastern part of 
Greenland there is a distance of only forty-live 
geographical miles. Hence, some of the ships that 
sailed to Iceland, at the time of the settlement of 
this island and later, could in case of a violent east 
wind, which is no rare occurrence in those regions, 
scarcely avoid approaching the coast of Greenland 
sufficiently to catch a glimpse of its jokuls, — nay, 
even to land on its islands and promontories. Thus 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 59 

it is said that Gunnbjorn, Ulf Krage's son, saw land 
lying in the ocean at the west of Iceland, when, in 
the year 876, he was driven out to the sea by a 
storm. Similar reports were heard, from time to 
time, by other mariners. About a century later a 
certain man, by name Erik the Red, had fled from 
the Jader, in ISTorway, on account of manslaughter, 
and had settled in the western part of Iceland. 
Here he also was outlawed for manslaughter, by 
the public assembly, and condemned to banishment. 
He therefore fitted out his ship, and resolved to 
go in search of the land in the west that Gunnbjorn 
and others had seen. He set sail in the year 984, 
and found the land as he had expected, and re- 
mained there exploring the country for two years. 
At the end of this period he returned to Iceland, 
giving the newly-discovered country the name of 
Greenland, in order, as he said, to attract settlers, 
who would be favorably impressed with so pleasing 
a name. 

The result was that many Icelanders and Norse- 
men emigrated to Greenland, and a flourishing 
colony was established, with Gardar for its capital 
city, which in the year 1261, became subject to the 
crown of Norway. The Greenland colony main- 
tained its connection with the mother countries for 



60 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBrS. 

a period of no less than 400 years ; yet it finally 

disappeared, and was almost forgotten. Torfseus 

gives a list of seventeen bishops who ruled in 
Greenland. 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE SHIPS OF THE NORSEMEN. 

"OEFOEE following the Norsemen farther on 
-*-^ their westward course, it may not be out of 
place to say a few words about their ships. Having 
crossed the briny deep four times myself, I have 
seen something of what is required in order to ven- 
ture with safety on so long watery journeys. I have 
also seen one of the old iJ^orse Yiking ships, which 
is preserved at the University of ^N'orway, and it 
seemed to me an excellent one both in respect to 
form and size. Now, I do not mean to say that the 
old ^Norsemen possessed such ocean crafts as now 
plow the deep between New York and Liverpool; 
but what I mean to say is this, that the Norsemen 
were then, as they are now, very excellent navigators. 
They had good sea-going vessels, some of which were 
of large size. We have an account, in Olaf Trygve- 
son's Saga, of one that was in many respects remark- 
able. That part of the keel which rested on the 
ground was 140 feet long. None but the choicest 



62 AMEEICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

material was used in its construction. It contained 
thirty-four rowing-benches, and its stem and stern 
were overlaid with gold.^ Their vessels would com- 
pare favorably with those of other nations, which have 
been used in later times in expeditions around the 
world, and were in every way adapted for an ocean 
voyage. They certainly were as well fitted to cross 
the Atlantic as were the ships of Columbus. From 
the Sagas we also learn that the E'orsemen fully 
understood the importance of cultivating the study 
of navigation ; they knew how to calculate the course 
of the sun and moon, and how to measure time by 
the stars. Without a high degree of nautical knowl- 
edge they could never have accomplished their voy- 
ages to England, France, Spain, Sicily, Greece, and 
those still more difficult voyages to Iceland and 
Greenland. 

I have now given a brief historical sketch of the 
voyages and enterprises of the E^orsemen. I have 
done this to show that they were capable of the 

*This ship of Olaf Trygveson was called the Long Serpent, and was 
built by the ship-carpenter Thorberg, who is celebrated in the annals of 
the North for his ship-building. The Earl Hakon had a dragon containing 
forty rowing-benches. King Canute had one containing sixty, and King 
Olaf, the saint, possessed two ships capable of carrying two hundred men 
each. The Norse dragons glided on the waters as gracefully as ducks or 
swans, of which they also had the form. Compare also " Saga Fridthjofs 
ens Frsekna," (the Saga of Fridthjof the Bold, in ''Viking Tales of the 
North,") chapter 1, where his good ship Ellida is described. 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 63 

exploit of discovering America — nay, that it was in 
fact an unavoidable result of their constant seafaring 
life- so that even if we did not have the unmis- 
takable language of the Sagas, we might still be 
able to assert, with a considerable degree of cer- 
tainty, that the JS'orsemen must have been aware of 
the existence of the American continent. Yes, the 
JSTorsemen were truly a great people ! Their spirit 
found its way into the Magna Charta* of England 
and into the Declaration of Inependence in America. 
The spirit of the Yikings still survives in the bosoms 
of Englishmen, Americans and l^orsemen, extending 
their commerce, taking bold positions against tyr- 
anny, and producing wonderful internal improve- 
ments in these countries. 

* Compare William and Mary Howitt. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE SAGAS AND DOCUMENTS ARE GENUINE. 



"TTT^E have now seen that the I^orsemen made 
^ ' themselves known in every part of the 
civilized world; that they had excellent ships, that 
they were well trained seaman, and a highly civ- 
ilized nation, possessing in fact all the means 
necessary for reaching the continent in the west; 
and we are thus prepared for the vital question, 
Did the Norsemen actually discover and explore 
the coast of the country now known as America? 
There is certainly no. improbability in the idea. 
Open an atlas at the map of the Atlantic Ocean, 
or at the maps of the two hemispheres. Observe 
the distance between ISTorway and Iceland, and the 
distances between Iceland and Greenland and Green- 
land and ^Newfoundland. You perceive it is more 
than twice the distance between JSTorwaj^ and Ice- 
land that it is between Iceland and Greenland, and 
not far from twice the distance that it is between 
Greenland and Labrador, and thence on to New- 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 65 

foundland. Now, after conceding the fact that 
Norse colonies existed in Greenland for at least 
three hundred years, which every student of Norse 
history knows to be a fact, we must prepare our- 
selves for the proposition that America was dis- 
covered by the Norsemen. It would be alto- 
gether unreasonable to suppose that a seafaring 
people like the Norsemen, who traversed the 
broad western ocean to reach Iceland and Green- 
land, could live for three centuries within a short 
voyage of this vast continent and never become 
aware of its existence. 

But fortunately on this point we are not left to 
conjecture. We have a complete written record of 
the discovery. Intelligent men must first succeed 
in blotting out innumerable pages of well authen- 
ticated history before they undertake to deny or 
dispute the facts of this discovery. While literary 
darkness overspread the whole of the European 
continent for many centuries following the tenth, 
letters were highly cultivated in Iceland; and this 
is the very time and country in which the Sagas 
containing a record of the discovery of America 
originated. That they were written long before 
Columbus is as easy to demonstrate as the fact 
that Herodotos wrote his history before the era of 



QQ AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

J 

Christ. The authenticity and authority of the Ice- 
landic Sagas has been fully acknowledged by Alex- 
ander VON Humboldt in his Cosmos,^ by Malte- 
BRUNjf and many other distinguished scholars ; and 
therefore a further discussion is at this time un- 
necessary on this point. 

The manuscripts, in which we have the Sagas 
relating to America, are found in the celebrated 
Codex Flatceensis, a skin-book that was finished in 
tlie year 138Y. This work, written with great care 
and executed in the highest style of art, is now 
preserved in its integrity in the archives of Copen- 

* Cosmos, Vol. ii., pp. 269-272, where Alexander Von Humboldt, 
discussing the pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Norsemen, 
says: "We are here on historical gi'ound. By the critical and highly 
praiseworthy efforts of Professor Eafn and the Royal Society of Northern 
Antiquaries in Copenhagen, the Sagas and documents in regard to the 
expeditions of the Norsemen to Helluland (Newfoundland), to Markland 
(the mouth of the St. Lawrence river and Nova Scotia), and to Vinland 
(Massachusetts), have been published and satisfactorily commented upon. 
* * * The discovery of the northern part of America by the Norsemen 
cannot be disputed. The length of the voyage, the direction in which 
they sailed, the time of the sun's rising and setting, are accurately given. 
While the Chalifat of Bagdad was still flourishing under the Abbasides. 
and while the rule of the Samanides, so favorable to poetry, still flour- 
ished in Persia, America was discovered, about the year 1000, by Leif. sou 
of Erik the Red, at about 4H/2° N. L." 

t Vid. Nouvelles annales des voyages, de la geographic, de I'histoire 
et de I'archeologie, r^igees par M. V.-A. Maltb-Bkun, secretaire de la 
commission centrale de la societe de geographic de Paris, member de 
plusieurs societes savantes. Aout, 1858, p. 253. 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 67 

hagen, and a carefully printed copy- of it is to be 
found in Mimer's library at the University of Wis- 
consin. We gather from this work that the I^orse- 
men, after discovering and settling Greenland, and 
then keeping a bold southwestern course, discovered 
America more than 500 years before Columbus; and 
I shall in the following chapters present some of 
the main circumstances of this discovery. 

* Flateyarbok, Christiania (Norway), 1860-1868. 



CHAPTER X. 



<v BJARNE HERJULFSON, 986. 

"TK the year 986, the same year that he returned 
from Greenland, the above-named Erik the 
E-ED moved from Iceland to Greenland, and among 
his numerous friends, v^ho accompanied him, was 
an Icelander by name Hekjulf. 

Herjulf had a son by name Bjarne, who was a 
man of enterprise and fond of going abroad, and 
who possessed a merchant-ship, with which he gath- 
ered wealth and reputation. He used to be by 
turns a year abroad and a year at home with his 
father. He chanced to be away in Norway when 
his father moved over to Greenland, and on return- 
ing to Iceland he was so much disappointed on 
hearing of his father's departure with Erik, that 
he would not unload his ship, but resolved to 
follow his old custom and take up his abode with 
his father. '' Who will go with me to Greenland ? " 
said he to his men. "We will all go with you," 
replied the men. "But we have none of us ever 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 69 

been on the Greenland Sea before," said Bjarne. 
" We mind not that," said the men, — so away they 
sailed for three days and lost sight of Iceland. 
Then the wind failed. After that a north wind 
and fog set in, and they knew not where they were 
sailing to. This lasted many days, until the sun 
at length appeared again, so that they could detei-- 
mine the quarters of the sky, and lo 1 in the horizon 
they saw, like a blue cloud, the outlines of an un- 
known land. They approached it. They saw that 
it was without mountains, was covered with wood, 
and that there were small hills inland. Bjarne 
saw that this did not answer to the description of 
Greenland ; he knew he was too far south ; so he 
left the land on the larboard side and sailed north- 
ward two days, when they got sight of land again. 
The men asked Bjarne if this was Greenland ; but 
he said it was not, "For in Greenland," he said, 
"there are great snowy mountains; but this land 
is flat and covered with trees." They did not go 
ashore, but turning the bow from the land, they 
kept the sea with a fine breeze from the southwest 
for three days, when a third land was seen. Still 
Bjarne would not go ashore, for it was not like 
what had been reported of Greenland. So they 
sailed on, driven by a violent southwest wind, and 



70 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

after four days they reached a land wliich suited the 
description of Greenland. Bjarne was not deceived, 
for it was Greenland, and he happened to land 
close to the place where his father had settled. 

It cannot be determined with certainty what 
parts of the American coast Bjarne saw ; but from 
the circumstances of the voyage, the course of the 
winds, the direction of the currents, and the pre- 
sumed distance between each sight of land, there is 
reason to believe that the first land that Bjarne saw 
in the year 986 was the present Nantucket, one 
degree south of Boston ; the second Nova Scotia, 
and the third Newfoundland. Thus Bjarne Her- 
JULFSON was the first European whose eyes beheld 
any part of the present N'eio England. The first 
European who saw the American continent, and 
whose name is recorded, was Are Marson (see p. 18). 
\^ He went to Great Ireland (the Chesapeake country), 
which had undoubtedly been discovered by the Irish 
even long before Are visited there in the year 983 



7 



CHAPTER XT. 



^ LEIF ERIKSON, 1000. 

Xr/^HEK Bjarne visited JS'orway, a few years 
later, and told of his adventure, he was 
censured in strong terms by Jarl (Earl) Erik and 
others, because he had manifested so little interest 
that he had not even gone ashore and explored 
these lands, and because he could give no more 
definite account of them. Still, what he did say 
was sufficient to arouse in the mind of Leif Eeik- 
SON, son of Erik the Eed, a determination to solve 
the problem and find out what kind of lands these 
were that were talked so much about. He bought 
Bjarne's ship from him, set sail with a good crew 
of thirty-five men, and found the lands just as 
Bjarne had described them, far away to the south- 
west of Greenland. They landed in Helluland 
(JS'ewfoundland) and in Markland (J^ova Scotia), 
explored these countries somewhat, gave them names, 
and proceeded from the latter into the open sea 
with a northeast wind, and were two days at sea 



72 AMERK^A NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

before they saw land again. They sailed into a 
sound. It was very shallow at ebb-tide, so that 
their ship stood dry and there was a long way from 
their ship to the water. But so much did they 
desire to land that they did not give themselves 
time to wait until the water rose again under their 
ship, but ran at once on shore, at a place where a 
river flows out of a lake.* But as soon as the 
water rose up under the ship, they rowed out in 
their boats, floated the ship up the river and thence 
into the lake, where they cast anchor, brought their 
skin cots out of the ship, and raised their tents. 
After this they took counsel, and resolved to remain 
through the winter, and built a large house. There 
was no want of salmon, either in the river or in the 
lake, and larger salmon than they had before seen. 
The nature of the country was, as they thought, so 
good that cattle would not require house-feeding in 
winter. Day and night were more equal than in 
Greenland or Iceland, for on the shortest day the sun 
was above the horizon from half-past seven in the 
forenoon till half-past four in the afernoon ; which 
circumstance gives for the latitude of the place 41° 
24' 10" ; hence Leif 's booths are thought to have 

*This lake is Mount Hope Bay. The tourist, in traveling that way by 
rail, will at first take Mount Hope Bay for a lake. B. F. DeCosta. p, 32. 



AMERICA NOT DI8C0VEKED BV COLUMBUS. 73 

been situated at or near Fall Eiver, Massachusetts. 
i^eif Lnkson called the country Vinland, and the 
cause of this was the following interesting incident: 
lliere was a German in Leif Erikson's party by 
name Tykker. He was a prisoner of war, but had 
become Leif s special favorite. He was missing one 
day after they came back from an exploring expedi- 
tion Leif Eriksou became very anxious about 
lyrker, and fearing that he might be killed by wild 
beasts or by natives,* he went out with a few men 
to search for him. Toward evening he was found 
eommg home, but in a very excited state of mind 
The cause of his excitement was some fruit which 
he had found and which he held up i„ his hands 
shouting: "Weintrauben! Weintrauben ! ! Weintrau- 
ben ! ! ! " The sight and taste of this fruit, to which 
he had been accustomed in his own native land 
had excited him to such an extent that he seemed 
drunk, and for some time he would do nothing 
but laugh, devour grapes and talk German, whicli 
language our Norse discoverers did not understand 
At last he spoke Norse, and explained that he, to 

•0„r Norse colonists i„ Vinland had frequent intercourse with the 

t. eTr ZT:JT Tr """ '"" '''""'"« *^=»"^) ""»"- '» 
«Z„ and Shriveled aspect. Compare also the adjective "skral," 



which means slim, lean 
4 



74: AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

his great joy and surprise, had found vines and 
grapes in great abundance. From this circumstance 
the land got the name of Yinland, and history got 
the interesting fact that a German was along with 
the daring argonauts of the Christian era. 

Here is then a short account of the lirst expedi- 
tion to 'New England. It took place in the year 
1000, and Leif Erikson was the first pale-faced man 
of whom it is recorded that he undertook a voyage 
across the Atlantic Ocean, with the definitely avowed 
purpose of seeking for land. His was no discovery 
by accident. The nature of Leif Erikson's expedi- 
tion, the end sought, etc., was as clearly defined in 
his own mind, and as well understood by his coun- 
trymen, as in the case of the expedition undertaken 
by Columbus in 1492. But Leif did not set heaven 
and earth in commotion in reference to the matter 
of going across the Atlantic Ocean. He simply 
bought Bjarne's ship, engaged thirty-five fearless 
seamen like himself, said good-bye to his aged 
father, and set sail ! // 



CHAPTER XII, 



THORVALD ERIKSON, 1003. 

T"]^ the spring, when the winds were favorable, 
Leif Erikson returned to Greenland. The ex- 
pedition to Yinland was much talked of, and Thor- 
WALD, Leif's brother, thought that the land had 
been much too little explored. Then said Leif to 
Thorvald : " You may go with my ship, brother, to 
Yinland, if you like." And so another expedition 
was fitted out, in the year 1002, by Thorwald Erik- 
son, who went to Yinland and remained there three 
years; but it cost him his life, for in a battle with 
the Skrsellings an arrow from one of thd natives of 
America pierced his side, causing death. He was 
buried in Yinland, and two crosses were erected on 
his grave, — one at his head and one at his feet. 
Hallowed ground, this, beneath whose sod rests the 
dust of the first Christian and the first European 
who died in America! His death and burial also 
gains interest in another respect, for in the year 
1831 there was found in the vicinity of Fall River, 
Massachusetts, a skeleton in armor ^ and many of 
the circumstances connected with it are so wonderful 



76 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

that it might indeed seem almost as though it were 
the skeleton of this very Thorvald Erikson ! This 
skeleton in armor attracted much attention at the 
time, was the subject of much learned discussion, 
and our celebrated poet Longfellow wrote, in the 
year 1841, a poem about it, beginning: 

"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!" 
After which he makes the skeleton tell about his 
adventures as a viking, about the pine forests of 
Norway, about his voyage across the stormy deep, 
and about the discovery of America, concerning 
which he says: 

"Three weeks we westward bore, 
And when the storm was o'er, 
Cloudlike we saw the shore 

Stretching to leeward; 
There, for my lady's bower, 
Built I the lofty tower,* 
Which to this very hour 

Stands looking seaward." 

The following are the last two verses of the 

poem: 

"Still grew my bosom, then. 

Still as a stagnant fen, 
Hateful to me were men. 
The sunlight hateful ! 

♦The tower here referred to is the famous Newport tower in Rhode 
Island, which undoubtedly was built by the Norsemen; at least we persist 
in claiming it, until it can be clearly shown that it has been built since the 
landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 77 

In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warlike gear, 
Fell I upon my spear, — 
Oh, death was grateful! 

"Thus, seamed with many scars, 
Bursting these prison bars, 
Up to its native stars 

My soul ascended. 
There, from the flowing bowl, 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul: 
Skaal! to the Northland, skaal! 
Thus the tale ended." 

The great Swedish chemist Berzelius analyzed* 
a part of the breastplate which was found on the 
skeleton, and found that in composition it corre- 
sponded with metals used in the ISTorth during the 
tenth century; and comparing the Fall Eiver breast- 
plate with old J^orthern armors, it was also found 
to correspond with these in style. 

When the JS'orsemen had buried their chief, Thor- 
wald, they returned to Leifsbudir (Leif's booths), 
loaded their ships with the products of the land, and 
returned to Greenland in the year 1005. 

*A bronze article found in Denmark, and dating with certainty back 
to the tenth century, was also analyzed, and the annexed table shows the 
result of the analysis: 

Breastvlate Bronze Article 

from from 

America. Denmark. 

Copper 70.29 6713 

^!°^ 28.03. -;;;;2o!39 

Tin 0.91 924 

^^^^ 0.74 ____^ o OQ 



Iron 0.03- 



0.11 



CHAPTER XIII 



THORSTEIN ERIKSON, 1005. 

rr^HEN the Sagas tell us that Thoestein, the 
youngest son of Erik the Red, was seized 
with a strong desire to pass over to Yinland to 
fetch the body of his brother Thorvald. He was 
married to GrDRiD, a w^oman remarkable for her 
beauty, her dignity, her prudence, and her good 
discourse. Thorstein fitted out a vessel, manned 
it with twenty-five men selected for their strength 
and stature, besides himself and Gudrid. When 
all was ready they put out to sea, and were soon 
out of sight of land. Through the whole summer 
they were tossed about on the deep, and were 
driven they knew not whither. Finally they made 
land, which they found to be Lysefjord, on the 
western coast of Greenland. Here Thorstein and 
several of his men died, and Gudrid returned to 
Eriksfjord. 



CHAPTER XIY. 



THORFINN KARLSEFNE AND GUDRID, 1007. 

rr^HE most distinguished explorer of Yinland 
-■- wa^ Thorfinn Karlsefne. He was a wealthy 
and influential man. He was descended from the 
most famous families in the North. Several of his 
ancestors had been elected kings. In the fall of 
1006 he came from Norway to Erikstjord with 
two ships. Karlsefne made rich presents to Leif 
Erikson, and Leif offered the Norse navigator the 
hospitalities of Brattahlid during winter. After the 
Yule festival Thorfinn began to treat with Leif as 
to the marriage of Gudrid, Leif being the person 
to whom the right of betrothment belonged. Leif 
gave a favorable ear to his advances, and in the 
course of tlie winter their nuptials were celebrated 
with due ceremony. The conversation frequently 
turned at Brattahlid upon Yinland the Good, many 
saying that an expedition thither held out fair 
prospects of gain. The result was that Thoriinn, 
accompanied by his wife, who urged him to the 
undertaking, sailed to Yinland in the spring of 



80 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

1007, and remained there three years. The Sagas 
lay considerable stress upon the fact that Gudrid 
persuaded him to undertake this expedition. She 
also appears to have taken a prominent part in 
the whole enterprise. Imagine yourself way off in 
Greenland. Imagine Gudrid and Thorfinn Karl- 
sefne taking a walk together on the sea-beach, and 
Gudrid talking to her husband in this wise; 

'^I wonder that you, Thorfinn, with good ships 
and many stout men, and plenty of means, should 
choose to remain in this barren spot instead of 
searching out the famous Yinland and making a 
settlement there. Just think what a splendid coun- 
try it must be, and what a desirable change for all 
of us. Thick and leafy woods like those of old 
Norway, instead of these rugged cliffs and snow-clad 
hills. Fields of waving grass and rye instead of 
moss-covered rocks and sandy soil. Trees large 
enough to build houses and ships instead of willow 
bushes, that are fit for nothing except to save our 
cattle from starvation when the hay-crop runs out ; 
besides longer sunshine in winter, and more genial 
warmth all the year round, instead of howling winds 
and ice and snow. Truly I think this country was 
wofully misnamed when they called it Greenland." 

You can easily imagine that Thorfinn was con- 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 81 

vinced by such persuasive arguments, and he resolved 
to follow his wife's advice. 

The expedition which now set out for Yinland 
was on a much larger scale than any of the expedi- 
tions that had preceded it. That Leif and Thorvald 
and Thorstein had not intended to make their per- 
manent abode in Yinland was plain, from the fact 
that they brought neither women nor flocks nor 
herds with them. Karlsefne, on the other hand, 
went forth fully equipped for colonization. The 
party consisted of one hundred and fifty -one men 
and seven women. A number of cattle and sheep 
were also carried on this occasion to Yinland. They 
all arrived there in safety, and remained, as has 
been stated, three years, when hostilities between 
them and the Skrsellings compelled them to give 
up their colony. 

The Saga gives a very full account of Thorfinn's 
enterprises in Yinland ; about the traffic with the 
Skrsellings; about the development of the colony, 
etc. ; all of which I am compelled to omit in this 
sketch. I must call attention, however, to the 
interesting fact that a son was born to Thorfinn 
and Gudrid the year after they had established 
themselves in their quarters at Straumfjord (Buz- 
zard's Bay). His name was Snorre Thorfinnson. 



82 AMERICA NOT DISCOVEKED BY COLUMBUS. 

He was bora in the present State of Massachusetts, 
in the year 1008, and he was the first man of 
European blood of whose birth in America we have 
any record. From him the famous sculptor, Albert 
Thorwaldsen, is lineally descended, besides a long 
train of learned and distinguished men who have 
flourished during the last eight centuries in Iceland 
and Denmark. 

In the next place, attention is invited to an 
inscription on a rock, situated on the right bank of 
the Taunton river, in Bristol county, Massachusetts. 
It is familiarly called the Dighton Writing Rock 
Inscription. It stands in the very region which 
the Korsemen frequented. It is written in char- 
acters which the natives have never used nor sculp- 
tured. This inscription was copied by Dr. Danforth 
as early as 1680, by Cotton Mather in 1712; it 
was copied by Dr. Greenwood in 1730, by Stephen 
Sewell in 1768, by James Winthrop in 1788, and 
has been copied at least four times in the present 
century. The rock was seen and talked of by the 
first settlers in 'New England, long before anything 
was said about the l^orsemen discovering America 
before Columbus. 




AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 83 

Near the center of the scription we read dis- 
tinctly, in Roman characters, 

CXXXI, 
which is 151,* the exact number of Thorfinn's party. 
Then w^e find an N, a boat, and the Runic character 
for M, which may be interpreted " N(orse) seafaring 
M(en)." Besides we have the word NAM — took 
(took possession), and the whole of Thorfinn's name, 
with the exception of the first letter. Repeating 
these characters we have 

ORFIN, CXXXI, N ^^^fe M, NAM, 

which has been interpreted by Prof. Rafn as fol- 
lows: "Thorfinn, with one hundred and fifty-one 
Norse seafaring men took possession of this land 
(landnam)." 

In the lower left corner of the inscription is a 
figure of a woman and a child, near the latter of 
which is the letter S, reminding us most forcibly 
of Gudrid and her son, Snorre. Upon the whole, 
the Dighton Writing Rock, if Prof. Rafn's plates 
and interpretations can be relied upon, removes all 
doubt concerning the presence of Thorfinn Karlsefne 
and the Norsemen at Taunton River, in the begin- 
ning of the eleventh century.f 

* The Icelanders reckoned twelve decades to the hundred and called 
it stort hundrad (great hundred), 
t See page 22. 



CHAPTER XY. 



OTHER EXPEDITIONS BY THE NORSEMEN. 

rXlHE Sagas give elaborate accounts of other 
-*- expeditions by the Norsemen to Yinland. 
Thus there is one by Freydis in the year 1011 ; 
and in the year 1121 the Bishop Erik Upsi went 
as a missionary to Yinland. 

Then there are Sagas that give accounts of expe- 
ditions by I^orsemen to Great Irland (North and 
South Carolina, Georgia and Florida), but I will 
omit these in the present sketch.'^^ 

The last expedition mentioned was in the year 
1347, but this was in the time of the Black Plague, 
which raged throughout Europe with unrelenting fury 
from 1347 to 1351, and also reached Iceland, Green- 
land and Yinland, and cut off communication between 
these countries. The Black Plague reduced the popu- 
lation of Norway alone from two millions to three 
hundred thousand, and this fact gives us some idea of 
the terrible ravages of this fearful epidemic. It is 
evident that the Black Plague left no surplus popula- 
tion for expeditions to America or elsewhere. • 

* See page 18. 



CHAPTER XVT 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY COLUMBUS. 

T WILL now devote a few pages to poincing out 
-*- some of the threads that connect this discovery 
of America by the J^orsemen with the more recent 
and better-known discovery by Columbus. 

1. From a letter which Columbus himself wrote, 
and which we find quoted in Washington Irving's 
Columbus,^ we know^ positively that while the de- 
sign of attempting the discovery in the west was 
maturing in the mind of Columbus, he made a 
voyage to the north of Europe, and visited Iceland. 
This was in February, 1477, and in his conversation 
with the Bishop and other learned men of Iceland, 
he must have been informed of the extraordinary 
fact, that their countrymen had discovered a great 
country beyond the western ocean, which seemed 
to extend southward to a great distance. This was 
a circumstance not likely to rest quietly in the 
active and speculative mind of tlie great geographer 

* Vol. 1. p. 59. 



86 AMEEICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

and navigator. The reader will observe that, when 
Columbus was in Iceland, in the year 1477, fifteen 
years before he discovered America, only one hun- 
dred and thirty years had elapsed since the last 
^N^orse expedition to Yinland. There were undoubt- 
edly people still living whose grandfathers had 
crossed the Atlantic, and it would be altogether 
unreasonable to suppose that he, who was constantly 
studying and talking about geography and navigation, 
possibly could visit Iceland and not hear anything of 
the land in the west. 

2. Gudrid, the wife of Thorfinn and mother of 
Snorre, made a pilgrimage to Rome after the death 
of her husband. It is related that she was well 
received, and she certainly must have talked there 
of her ever memorable trans-oceanic voyage to Yin- 
land, and her three years' residence there. Kome 
paid much attention to geographical discoveries, and 
took pains to collect all new charts and reports 
that were brought there. Every new discovery was 
an aggrandizement of the papal dominion, a new 
field for the preaching of the Gospel. The Romans 
might have heard of Yinland before, but she brought 
personal evidence. 

3. That Yinland was known at the Yatican is 
clearly proved by the fact that Pope Paschal II, 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 87 

in the year 1112, appointed Erik Upsi, Bishop of 
Iceland, Greenland and Yinland, and Erik Upsi 
went personally to Yinland in the year 1121. 

4. Recent developments in relation to Columbus 
tend to prove that he had opportunity to see a 
map of Yinland, procured from the Yatican for the 
Pinzons, and it would indeed astonish us more to 
learn that he, with his nautical knowledge, did not 
hear of America than that he did. We must also 
bear in mind that Columbus lived in an age of 
discovery; England, France, Portugal and Spain 
were vying with each other in discovering new 
lands and extending their territories. 

5. But in addition to the Sagas, the Dighton 
Writing Rock, the Newport Tower (which the 
Indians told the early I^ew England settlers was 
built by the giants, and the Norse discoverers cer- 
tainly looked like giants to the natives, since the 
former called the latter Skrsellings) ; and in addition 
to the skeleton in armor, we have a remarkable 
record of the early discovery of America by the 
Norsemen in the writings of Adam of Bremen, a 
canon and historian of high authority, who died in 
the year 1076. He visited the Danish king Svend 
Estridson, a nephew of Canute the Great, and on 
his return home he wrote a book '' On the Propa- 



88 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

gation of the Christian Religion in the North of 
Eurojpe^^ and at the end of this book he added a 
geographical treatise '' On the Position of Denmarlt 
and other regions heyond DenvfiarhP Having given 
an account of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland 
and Greenland, he says that, " hesides these there is 
still another region, lohich has heen visited hy many, 
lying in that Ocean {the Atlantic), which is called 
YiNLAND, hecause vines grow there spontaneously, 
producing very good wine; corn likewise springs 
up there without heing sown f and as Adam of 
Bremen closes his account of Yinland he adds these 
remarkable words : " This we Tcnow not hy fabu- 
lous conjecture, hut from positive statements of the 
DanesP 

Now, Adam of Bremen's work was first pub- 
lished in the year 1073, and was read by intelligent 
men throughout Europe, and Columbus being an 
educated man, and so deeply interested in geograph- 
ical studies, especially when they treated of the 
Atlantic Ocean, could he be ignorant of so important 
a work? 

I have here given jive reasons why Columbus 
must have known the existence of the American 
continent before he started on his voyage of discov- 
ery. 1. Gudrid's visit to Rome. 2. The appoint- 



AMEKICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 89 

ment, by Pope Pascal II, of Erik Upsi as Bishop of 
Yinland. 3. Adam of Bremen's account of Yinland, 
in his book published in 1073. 4. The map pro- 
cured from the Vatican for the Pinzons, which fact 
I have not, however, jet been able to establish with 
absolute certainty; and, 5, which caps the climax, 
Columbus' own visit to Iceland in the year 1477. 

These are stubborn facts, and, if you read the 
biography of Columbus, you will find that he always 
maintained a firm conviction that there was land in 
the west. He says himself that he based this con- 
viction on the authority of the learned writers. He 
stated, before he left Spain, that he expected to find 
land soon after sailing about seven hundred leagues; 
hence he knew the breadth of the ocean, and must, 
therefore, have had a pretty definite knowledge of 
the situation of Yinland and Great Ireland. A day 
or two before coming in sight of the new world, he 
capitulated with his mutinous crew, promising, if lie 
did not discover land within three days, to abandon 
the voyage. In fact, the whole history of his dis- 
covery proves that he either must have possessed 
previous knowledge of America, or, as some have 
had the audacity to maintain, been inspired. We 
do not believe in that sort of inspiration. It makes 
Columbus a greater man, in our estimation, that he 



90 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

formed his opinion by a chain of logical deductions 
based upon thorough study and research. It is to 
the credit of Columbus, we say, that he investigated 
the nature of things ; that he diligently searched the 
learned writers; that he paid close attention to all 
reports of navigators, and gathered up all those scat- 
tered gleams of knowledge that fell ineffectually upon 
ordinary minds. Washington Irving says: "When 
Columbus had formed his theory it became fixed in 
his mind with singular firmness. He never spoke 
in doubt or hesitation, but with as much certainty as 
if his eyes had already beheld the promised land." 
We say, if he held this firm conviction on only 
presumptive evidence, then, with all due respect for 
his distinguished biographer, he is not entitled to 
the enviable reputation for scholarship and good 
judgment that has been accredited to him by Wash- 
ington Irving. We claim to be vindicating the great 
name of Columbus, by showing that he must have 
based his certainty upon equally certain facts, which 
lie possessed the ability and patience to study out, 
and the keenness of intellect to put together, and 
til is gives historical importance to the discovery 
of America by the Norsemen. The fault that we 
Hud with Columbus is, that he was not honest and 
frank enough to tell where and how he had obtained 



AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 91 

his previous information about the lands which he 
pretended to discover; that he sometimes talked of 
himself as chosen by Heaven to make this discovery, 
and that he made the fruits of his labors subservient 
to the dominion of inquisition. 

If our theory, then, does not make Columbus out 
as true and good a man as the reader may have con- 
sidered him, we still insist that it proves him a man 
of extraordinary ability. It shows that he discovered 
America by study and research, and not by accident 
or inspiration. Care should always be taken to vin- 
dicate great names from accident or inspiration. It 
defeats one of the most salutary purposes of history 
and biography, which is to furnish examples of what 
human genius and laudable enterprise can accomplish. ■^• 

That the Spanish and more recent colonies in 
America could become more permanent than the 
Norse colonies, is chiefly to be attributed to the 
superiority that fire-arms gave the Europeans over 
the natives. The Norsemen had no fire-arms, and 
their higher culture could not defend them against 
the swarms of savages that attacked them. In the 
next place, the Black Plague reduced the popula- 
tion of Norway and Iceland beyond the necessity or 
even possibility to emigrate. If the communication 

* Washington Irving. 



92 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 

between Yinland and the North could have been 
maintained say one hundred years longer, that is, to 
the middle of the fifteenth century, it is difiicult to 
determine what the result would have been. Possi- 
bly this sketch would have appeared in Icelandic 
instead of English. Undoubtedly the Norse colonies 
would have become firmly rooted by that time, and 
Norse language, nationality and institutions might 
have played as conspicuous a part in America as the 
English and their posterity do now-a-days. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



CONCLUSION. 

"T^UT it is not within the scope of this sketch 
-^-^ to discuss this subject any farther. Let us 
remember Leif Erikson, the first white man who 
turned the bow of his ship to the west for the pur- 
pose of finding America. Let us remember his 
brother, Thorvald Erikson, the first European and 
the first Christian w^ho w^as buried beneath Ameri- 
can sod! Let us not forget Thorfinn and Gud- 
RiD, who established the first European colony in 
New England ! nor their little son, Snorre, the first 
man of European blood whose birthplace was in 
the ]^ew World ! Let us erect a monument to Leif 
Erikson worthy of the man and the cause ; and 
while the knowledge of this discovery of America 
lay for a long time hid in the unstudied literature 
of Iceland, let us take this lesson, that " truth 
crushed to earth uill rise again; " that truth may 
often lie darkened and hid for a long time, but 
that it is like the beam of light from a star in 
some far distant region of the universe — after 



94 AMERICA NUT DISCOViiKED BY COLUMBUS. 

thousands of years it reaches some heavenly body 
and gives it light. 

In the language of Mr. Davis: ''Let us praise 
Leif Erikson for his courage, let us applaud him 
for his zeal, let us respect him for his motives, for 
he was anxious to enlarge the boundaries of knowl- 
edge. He reached the wished-for land, 



" ' Where now the western sun, 
O'er fields and floods, 
O'er every living soul 
Diffuseth glad repose.' 

He opened to the view a broad region, w^here smil- 
ing hope invites successive generations from the 
old world. 

" Such men as an Alexander, or a Tamerlane, 
conquer but to devastate countries. Discoverers add 
new regions of fertility and beauty to those already 
known. 

"And are not the hardy adventurers, plowing 
the briny deep, more attractive than the troops of 
Alexander, or JN^apoleon, marching to conquer the 
world, with plumes waving in the gentle breeze, 
and with arms glittering in the sunbeams? Who 
can tell all the benefits that discoverers confer on 
mankind ? 

" To count them all demands a thousand tongues, 
A throat of brass and adamantine lungs.' " 



WHAT SCHOLARS SAT 

ABOUT THE 

Historical, Linguistic and Literary Value 

OF THE 

SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 



"Der ar flagga pji mast och den visar at norr, och 
i iiorr ar den alskade jord ; 
jag vill folja de himmelska vindarnas gang, jag vill 
styra tillbaka mot Nord." 

— Tegner. 

ENGLISH VERSION. 

•' There's the flag on the mast, and it points to the North, 
And the North holds the land that I love. 
I will steer back to northward, the heavenly course 
Of the winds guiding sure from above." 

VERY little attention has hitherto been given in 
this country to the study of Scandinavian history, 
languages and literatures. We think this branch of 
study would not be so much neglected, if it were more 
generally known what an extensive source of intel- 
lectual pleasure it affords to the scholar who is ac- 
quainted with it. We hope, therefore, to serve a good 
cause by calling your attention to a few quotations from 
American, English, German, and French scholars, who 
have given much time and attention to the above named 
subject, in order that it may be known what they, who 



96 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

may justly be considered competent to judge, say of their 
importance. 

I will add that I have not found a scholar, who has 
devoted himself to this field of study and research, that 
has not at the same time become an enthusiastic admirer 
of Scandinavian and particularly Icelandic history, lan- 
guages and literatures. 

To scientific students it is sufficient to say, that a 
knowledge of the Scandinavian languages at once intro- 
duces them to several writers of great eminence in the 
scientific world. I will briefly mention a few. 

Hans Christian Oersted won for himself one of 
the greatest names of the age. His discovery, in 1820, of 
electro-magnetism — the identity of electricity and mag- 
netism — which he not only discovered, but demon- 
strated incontestably, placed him at once in the highest 
rank of physical philosophers, and has led to all the 
wonders of the electric telegraph. His great work, " The 
Soul of Nature," in which he promulgates his grand 
doctrine of the universe, abundantly repays a careful 
perusal. 

Carl von Linne (Linngeus) is the polar star in 
botany. He was professor at the University of Sweden, 
died in 1788, and is the founder of the established system 
of botany. As Linnaeus is the father of botany, so Ber- 
ZELius might be called the father of the present system 
of chemistry. He is one of the greatest ornaments of 
science. He devoted his whole life sedulously to the 
promotion and extension of his favorite science, and to 
liim is the world indebted for the discovery of many 
new elementary principles and valuable chemical com- 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 97 

biiiations now in general use. He filled the chair of 
chemistry in the University of Stockholm for forty-two 
years, and died in 1848. Scheele, Michael Saes, 
Haksteen, and several others, are men who have dis- 
tinguished themselves by their labors in the field of 
science, natural history and astronomy. And now read 
the following quotations, which we have promised to 
present. 

Mr. North Ludlow Beamish says : " The national 
literature of Iceland holds a distinct and eminent position 
in the literature of Europe. In that remote and cheer- 
less isle * * * religion and learning took up their 
tranquil abode, before the south of Europe had yet 
emerged from the mental darkness which followed the 
fall of the Roman Empire. There the unerring memo- 
ries of the Skalds and Sagamen were the depositories of 
past events, which, handed down from age to age, in one 
unbroken line of historical tradition, were committed to 
writing on the introduction of Christianity, and now 
come before us with an internal evidence of their truth, 
which places them amongst the highed order of historical 
records. 

" To investigate the origin of this remarkable ad- 
vancement in mental culture, and trace the progressive 
steps by which Icelandic literature attained an eminence 
which even now imparts a lustre to that barren land, is 
an object of interesting and instructive inquiry. 

"Among no other people of Europe can the concep- 
tion and birth of historical literature be more clearly 
traced than amongst the people of Iceland. Here it can 
be shown how memory took root, and gave birth to 
5 



98 



tHE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 



narrative ; liov/ narrative multiplied and increased until 
it was committed to writing, and how the written rela- 
tion eventually became sifted and arranged in chrono- 
logical order." 

Samuel Laing, Esq. — "All that men hope for of 
good government and future improvement in their 
physical and moral condition, — all that civilized men 
enjoy at this day of civil, religious and political liberty 
— the British constitution, representative legislature, 
the trial by jury, security of property, freedom of mind 
and person, the influence of public opinion over the con- 
duct of public affairs, the Reformation, the liberty of the 
press, the spirit of the age, — all that is or has been of 
value to man in modern times as a member of society, 
either in Europe or in America, may be traced to the 
spark left burning upon our shores by the Norwegian 
barbarians. 

"There seem no good grounds for the favorite and 
hackneyed course of all who have written on the origin 
of the British constitution and trial by jury, who un-. 
riddle a few dark phrases of Tacitus concerning the 
institutions of the ancient Germanic tribes, and trace up 
to that obscure source the origin of all political institu- 
tions connected with freedom in modern Europe. In 
the (Norwegian) Sagas we find, at a period immediately 
preceding the first traces of free institutions in our 
history, the rude but very vigorous demonstrations of 
similar institutions existing in great activity among 
those northern people, who were masters of the country 
under Canute the Great, who for two generations before 
his time had occupied and inhabited a very large portion 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 99 

of it, and of whom a branch under William of Normandy 
became its ultimate and permanent conquerors. It may 
be more classical to search in the pages of Tacitus for 
allusions to the customs of the tribes wandering in his 
day through the forests of Germany, which may bear 
some faint resemblance to modern institutions, or to 
what we fancy our modern institutions may have been 
in their infancy ; but it seems more consistent with 
correct principles of historic research to look for the 
origin of our institutions at the nearest, not at the most 
remote, source ; not at what existed 1,000 years before 
in the woods of Germany, among people whom we must 
believe upon supposition to have been the ancestors of 
the invaders from the north of the Elbe, who conquered 
England, and must again believe upon supposition, that 
when this people were conquered successively by the 
Danes and Normans, they imposed their own peculiar 
institutions upon their conquerors, instead of receiving 
institutions from them ; but at what actually existed, 
when the first notice of assemblies for legislative pur- 
poses can be traced in English history among the con- 
querors of the country, a cognate people, long established 
by previous conquests in a large portion of it, who used, 
if not the same, at least a language common to both, 
and who had no occasion to borrow, from the conquered, 
institutions which were flourishing at the time in their 
mother country in much greater vigor. It is in these 
(Norwegian) Sagas, not in Tacitus, that we have to look 
for the origin of the political institutions of England. 
The reference of all matters to the legislative assemblies 
of the people is one of the most striking facts in the 
Sagas. 



100 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

•' The Sagas, although composed by natives of Ice- 
land, are properly Norwegian literature. The events, 
persons, manners, language, belong to Norioay; and they 
are productions which, like the works of Homer, of 
Shakespeare, and of Scott, are strongly stamped with 
nationality of character and incident. 

'- A portion of that attention, which has exhausted 
classic mythology, and which has too long dwelt in the 
Pantheons of Greece and Rome, and is wearied with 
fruitless efforts to learn something more, where, perhaps, 
nothing more is to be learned, may very profitably, and 
very successfully, be directed to the vast field of Gothic 
research. For we are Goths and the descendants of 
Goths — 

" 'The men, 

Of earth's best blood, of titles manifold.' 

And it well becomes us to ask, what has Zeus to do with 
the Brocken, Apollo with Effersburg, or Poseidon with 
the Northern Sea ? The gods of our lathers were neither 
Jupiter, nor Saturn, nor Mercury, but Odin, Brage, or 
Eger. If we marvel at tlie pictures of heathen divinities 
as painted by classical hands, let us not forget that our 
ancestors had deities of their own — gods as mighty in 
their attributes, as refined in their tastes, as heroic in 
their doings, as the gods worshiped in the Parthenon or 
talked about in the forum." 

M. Mallet says : " History has not recorded the 
annals of a people who have occasioned greater, more 
sudden, or more numerous revolutions in Europe than 
the Scandinavians, or whose antiquities, at the same 
time, are so little known. Had, indeed, their emigra- 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 101 

tions been only like those sudden torrents of which all 
traces and remembrance are soon effaced, the indifference 
that has been shown to them would have been suffi- 
ciently justified by the barbarism they have been ap- 
proached with. But, during those general inundations, 
the face of Europe underwent so total a change, and 
during the confusion they occasioned, such different 
establishments took place; new societies were formed, 
animated so entirely by the new spirit, that the history 
of our own manners and institutions ought necessarily 
to ascend back, and even dwell a considerable time upon 
a period which discovers to us their chief origin and 
source. 

" But I ought not barely to assert this. Permit me 
to support the assertions by proof. For this purpose 
let us briefly run over all the different revolutions which 
this part of the world underwent during the long course 
of ages which its history comprehends, in order to see 
what share the nations of the North have had in pro- 
ducing them. If we recur back to the remotest times, 
we observe a nation issuing step by step from the forests 
of Scythia, incessantly increasing and dividing to take 
possession of the uncultivated countries which it met 
with in its progress. Very soon after, we see the same 
people, like a tree full of vigor, extending long branches 
over all Europe ; we see them also carrying with them 
wherever they came, from the borders of the Black Sea 
to the extremities of Spain, of Sicily, and of Greece, a 
religion simple and martial as themselves, a form of 
government dictated by good sense and liberty, a restless 
unconquered spirit, apt to take fire at the very mention 
of subjection and constraint, and a ferocious courage 



102 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

nourished by a savage and vagabond life. While the 
gentleness of the climate softened imperceptibly the fero- 
city of those who settled in the South, colonies of Egyp- 
tians and Phenicians mixing with them upon the coasts 
of Greece, and thence passing over to those of Italy, 
taught them at last to live in cities, to cultivate letters, 
arts and commerce. Thus their opinions, their customs 
and genius, were blended together, and new states were 
formed upon new plans. Rome, in the meantime, arose 
and at length carried all before her. In proportion as 
she increased in grandeur, she forgot her ancient man- 
ners, and destroyed, among the nations whom she over- 
powered, the original spirit with which they were ani- 
mated. But this spirit continued unaltered in the colder 
countries of Europe, and maintained itself there like the 
independency of the inhabitants. Scarce could fifteen 
or sixteen centuries produce there any change in that 
spirit. There it renewed itself incessantly ; for, during 
the whole of that long interval, new adventurers issuing 
continually from the original inexhaustible country, 
trod upon the heels of their fathers toward the north, 
and, being in their turn succeeded by new troops of 
followers, they pushed one another forward like the 
waves of the sea. The northern countries, thus over- 
stocked, and unable any longer to contain such restless 
inhabitants, equally greedy of glory and plunder, dis- 
charged at length upon the Roman Empire the weight 
that oppressed them. The barriers of the empire, ill 
defended by a people whom prosperity had enervated, 
were borne down on all sides by torrents of victorious 
armies. We then see the conquerors introducing, among 
the nations they vanquished, viz., into the very bosom 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 103 

of slaveiy and sloth, that spirit of independence and 
equality, that elevation of soul, that taste for rural and 
military life, which both the one and the other had 
originally derived from the same common source, but 
which were then among the Romans breathing their last. 
Dispositions and principles so opposite, struggled long 
with forces sufficiently equal, but they united in the end, 
they coalesced together, and from their coalition sprung 
those principles and that spirit which governed after- 
ward almost all the states of Europe, and which, not- 
withstanding the differences of climate, of religion, and 
particular accidents, do visibly reign in them, and retain, 
to this day, more or less, the traces of their first common 
origin. 

" It is easy to see, from this short sketch, how greatly 
the nations of the earth have influenced the different 
fates of Europe ; and if it be worth while to trace its 
revolutions to their causes; — if the illustration of its 
institutions, of its police, of its customs, of its manners, 
of its laws, be a subject of useful and interesting inquiry, 
it must be allowed that the antiquities of the North, 
that is to say, everything which tends to make us ac- 
quainted with its ancient inhabitants, merits a share in 
the attention of thinking men. But to render this 
obvious by a particular example : is it not well known 
that the most flourishing and celebrated states of Europe 
owe originally to the northern nations whatever liberty 
they now enjoy, either in their constitution or in the 
spirit of their government ? For although the Gothic 
form of government has been almost everywhere altered 
or abolished, have we not retained, in most things, the 
opinions, the customs, the manners which that govern- 



104 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

ment had a tendency to produce ? Is not this, in fact, 
the principal source of that courage, of that aversion to 
slavery, of that empire of honor which characterized in 
general the European nations; and of that moderation, 
of that easiness of access, and peculiar attention to the 
rights of humanity, which so happily distinguish our 
sovereigns from the inaccessible and superb tyrants of 
Asia ? The immense extent of the Eoman Empire had 
rendered its constitution so despotic and military, many 
of its emperors were such ferocious monsters, its senate 
was become so mean-spirited and vile, that all elevation 
of sentiment, everything that was noble and manly, 
seems to have been forever banished from their hearts 
and minds; insomuch that if all Europe had received 
the yoke of Rome in this her state of debasement, this 
fine part of the world reduced to the inglorious con- 
dition of the rest could not have avoided falling into 
that kind of barbarity, which is of all others the most 
incurable; as, by making as many slaves as there are 
men, it degrades them so low as not to leave them even 
a thought or desire of bettering their condition. But 
nature has long prepared a remedy for such great evils, 
in that unsubmitting, unconquerable spirit with which 
she has inspired the people of the North; and thus she 
made amends to the human race for all the calamities 
which, in other respects, the inroads of these nations 
and the overthrow of the Roman Empire produced. 

"The great prerogative of Scandinavia (says the ad- 
mirable author of the Spirit of Laws*), and what ought 
to recommend its inhabitants beyond every people upon 
earth, is, that they afforded the great resource to the 

* Baron cle MoiUesquieu (L'Esprit cle Lois), 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 105 

liberty of Europe, that is, to almost all the liberty that 
is among men. The Goth Jornande, adds he, calls the 
North of Europe the forge of mankind. I should ratlicr 
call it the forge of those instruments which broke the 
fetters manufactured in the South. It was there those 
valiant nations were bred who left their native climes to 
destroy tyrants and slaves, and so to teach men that 
nature having made them equal, no reason could be 
assigned for their becoming dependent but their mutual 
happiness." 

H. W. Longfellow is an enthusiastic admirer of the 
Scandinavian languages. Of the Icelandic he says: 
^^ The Icelandic is as remarkable as the Anglo-Saxon for 
its abruptness, its obscurity and the boldness of its 
metaphors. Poets are called Songsmiths; — poetry, the 
Language of the Gods; — gold, the Daylight of Dwarfs; 
— the heavens, the Scull of Ymer; — the rainbow, the 
Bridge of the Gods ; — a battle, a Bath of Blood, the Hail 
of Odin, the Meeting of Shields ; — the tongue, the Sword 
of Words ; — a river, the Sweat of Earth, the Blood of the 
Valleys; — arrows, the Daughters of Misfortune, the 
Hailstones of Helmets; — the earth, the Vessel that 
floats on the Ages ; — the sea, the Field of Pirates ; — 
a ship, the Skate of Pirates, the Horse of the Waves. 
The ancient Skald (Bard) smote the strings of his harp 
with as bold a hand as the Berserk smote his foe. When 
heroes fell in battle he sang to them in his Drapa, or 
death-song, that they had gone to drink ^divine mead 
in the secure and tranquil palaces of the gods,' in that 
Valhalla upon whose walls stood the watchman Heim- 
dal, whose ear was so acute that he could hear the grass 



106 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

grow in the meadows of earth, and the wool on the 
backs of sheep. He lived in a credulous age, in the 
dim twilight of the past. He was 

' The sky-lark in the dawu of years, 
The poet of the morn.' 

In the vast solitudes around him, the heart of Nature 
beat against his own. From the midnight gloom of 
groves, the deep-voiced pines answered the deeper- 
voiced and neighboring sea. To his ear, these were not 
the voices of dead, but living things. Demons rode the 
ocean like a weary steed, and the gigantic pines flapped 
their sounding wings to smite the spirit of the storm. 

"Still wilder and fiercer were these influences of 
Nature in desolate Iceland, than on the mainland of 
Scandinavia. Fields of lava, icebergs, geysers and vol- 
canoes were familiar sights. When the long winter 
came, and the snowy Heckla roared through the sunless 
air, and the flames of the Northern Aurora flashed along 
the sky, like phantoms from Valhalla, the soul of the 
poet was tilled with images of terror and dismay. He 
bewailed the death of Baldur, the sun ; and saw in each 
eclipse the horrid form of the wolf, Maanegarm, who 
swallowed the moon and stained the sky with blood." 

Professor W. Fiske, of Cornell University, who is 
undoubtedly the most learned northern scholar in this 
country, who has spent several years in the Scandinavian 
countries, and who is an enthusiastic admirer of Iceland 
and its Sagas, has sent me the following lines for inser- 
tion in this appendix : 

" It is not necessary to dwell on the value of Icelandic 
to those who desire to investigate the early history of the 



THE SCANDIN AVIAN LANGUAGES. 107 

Teutonic race. The religious belief of our remote an- 
cestors, and very many of their primitive legal and social 
customs, some of which still influence the daily life of 
the people, find their clearest and often their only eluci- 
dation in the so-called Eddie and Shaldic lays, and in the 
Sagas. The same writings form the sole sources of 
Scandinavian history before the fourteenth century, and 
they not infrequently shed a welcome ray on the obscure 
annals of the British Islands, and of several continental 
nations. They furnish, moreover, an almost unique ex- 
ample of a modern literature which is completely indige- 
nous. The old Icelandic literature, which Mobius truly 
characterizes as 'ein Phiinomen vom Standpunkte der 
allgemeinen Cultur und Literaturgeschichte,' and be- 
side which the literatures of all the other early Teutonic 
dialects — Gothic, Old High German, Saxon, Frisian, 
and Anglo-Saxon — are as a drop to a bucket of water, 
developed itself out of the actual life of the people under 
little or no extraneous influence. In this respect it de- 
serves the careful study of every student of letters. For 
the English-speaking races especially there is nowhere, 
so near home, a field^romising to the scholar so rich 
a harvest. The few translations, or attempted transla- 
tions, which are to be found in English, give merely 
a faint idea of the treasures of antique wisdom and 
sublime poetry which exist in the Eddie lays, or of the 
quaint simplicity, dramatic action, and striking realism 
which characterize the historical Sagas. ISTor is the 
modern literature of the language, with its rich and 
abundant stores of folk-lore, unworthy of regard." 

Beis^jamin Lossing says: "It is back to the ]^or- 
wegian Vikings we must look for the hardiest elements 
of progress in the United States." 



108 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

B. F. De Costa. — " Let us remember that in vindi- 
cating the Northmen we honor those who not only give 
us the first knowledge possessed of the American conti- 
nent, but to whom we are indebted for much besides that 
we esteem valuable. For we fable in a great measure 
when we speak of our Saxon inheritance; it is rather from 
the Northmen that we have derived our vital energy, our 
freedom of thought, and, in a measure that we do not yet 
suspect, our strength of speech. Yet, happily, the people 
are fast becoming conscious of their indebtedness ; so that 
it is to be hoped that the time is not far distant when 
the Northmen may be recognized in their right social, 
political and literary characters, and at the same time, 
as navigators, assume their true position in the Pre-Co- 
lumbian Discovery of America. 

"The twelfth century was an era of great literary 
activity in Iceland, and the century following showed 
the same zeal. Finally Iceland possessed a body of prose 
literature superior in quantity and value to that of any 
other modern nation of its time. Indeed, the natives of 
Europe, at this period, had no prose literature in any 
modern language spoken by the people. 

**Yet while other nations w^ere without a literature, 
the intellect of Iceland was in active exercise and works 
were produced like the Eddas and Heimskeingla, — 
works which, being inspired by a lofty genius, will rank 
with the writings of Homer and Herodotus while time 
itself endures." 

Says Sir Edmund Head, in regard to the Norwegian 
literature of the twelfth century : " No doubt there were 
translations in Anglo-Saxon from the Latin, by Alfred, 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 1<)9 

of an earlier date, but there was in truth no vernacular 
literature. I cannot name/' he says, ^' any work in high 
or low German jirose which can be carried back to this 
period. In France, prose writing cannot be said to have 
begun before the time of Villehardouin (1204) and Join- 
ville (1202) ; Castilian prose certainly did not begin before 
the time of Alfonso X (1252); Don Juan Manvel, the 
author Concle Lucanor, was not born till 1282. The 
Cronica General cle Espana was not composed till at 
least the middle of the thirteenth century. About the 
same time the language of Italy was acquiring that soft- 
ness and strength which were destined to appear so con- 
spicuously in the prose of Boccaccio and the writers of 
the next century. 

" Of course there was more or less poetry, yet poetry 
is something that is early developed among the rudest 
nations, while goodi prose tells that a people have become 
highly advanced in mental culture." 

William and Mary Howitt. — " There is nothing 
besides the Bible, which sits in a divine tranquillity of 
unapproachable nobility, like a King of Kings amongst 
all other books, and the poem of Homer itself, which can 
compare in all the elements of greatness with the Edda. 
There is a loftiness of stature and a growth of muscle 
about it which no poets of the same race have ever since 
reached. The obscurity which hangs over some parts of 
it, like the deep shadows crouching mid the ruins of the 
past, is probably the result of dilapidations ; but, amid 
this, stand forth the boldest masses of intellectual ma- 
sonry. We are astonished at the wisdom which is shaped 
into maxims, and at the tempestuous strength of passions 



110 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

tu which all modern emotions appear puny and con- 
strained. Amid the bright sunlight of a far-off time, 
surrounded by the densest shadows of forgotten ages, 
we come at once into the midst of gods and heroes, god- 
desses and fair women, giants and dwarfs, moving about 
in a world of wonderful construction, unlike any other 
worlds or creations which G-od has founded or man 
has imagined, but still beautiful beyond conception. 

"The Icelandic poems have no parallel in all the 
treasures of ancient literature. They are the expressions 
of the souls of poets existing in the primeval and un- 
effeminated earth. They are limnings of men and women 
of godlike beauty and endowments, full of the vigor of 
simple but impetuous natures. There are gigantic pro- 
portions about them. There are great and overwhelming 
tragedies in them, to which those of Greece only present 
any parallels. 

" The Edda is a structure of that grandeur and im- 
portance that it deserves to be far better known to us 
generally than it is. The spirit in it is sublime and 
colossal." 

Plikt Miles. — "The literary history of Iceland in 
the early ages of the Republic is of a most interesting 
character. When we consider the limited population of 
the country, and the many disadvantages under which 
they labored, their literature is the most remarkaUe on 
record. The old Icelanders, from the tenth to the six- 
teenth century, through a period of the history of the 
eWorld when little intellectual light beamed from the sur- 
rounding nations, were as devoted and ardent workers in 
the fields of history and poetry as any community in the 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. Hi 

world under the most favorable circumstances. Spring- 
ing from the Old J^orse or Norwegian stock, they carried 
the language and habits of their ancestors with them to 
their highland home. Though a very large number of 
our English words are derived direct from the Icelandic, 
yet the most learned and indefatigable of our lexicog- 
raphers, both in England and America, have acknowl- 
edged their ignorance of this language. 

"The Eddas abound in mythological machinery to 
an extent quite equal to the writings of Homer and 
Virgil." 

The learned Grerman writer Schlegel, in his " Es- 
thetics and Miscellaneous Works," says : " If any monu- 
ment of the primitive northern world deserves a place 
amongst the earlier remains of the South, the Icelandic 
Edda must be deemed worthy of that distinction. The 
spiritual veneration for ]N"afcure, to which the sensual 
Greek was an entire stranger, gushes forth in the mys- 
terious language and prophetic traditions of the North- 
ern Edda with a full tide of enthusiasm and inspiration 
sufficient to endure for centuries, and to supply a whole 
race of future bards and poets with a precious and ani- 
mating elixir. The vivid delineations, the rich, glowing 
abundance and animation of the Homeric pictures of 
the world, are not more decidedly superior to the misty 
scenes and shadowy forms of Ossian, than the Northern 
Edda is in its sublimity to the works of Hesiod." 

Prof. Dr. Deitrich asserts « that the Scandinavian 
literature is extraordinarily rich in all kinds of writings." 

Hon. George P. Marsh. — "It must suffice to re- 
mark that, in the opinion of those most competent to 



112 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

judge, the Icelandic literature has never been surpassed, 
if equaled, in all that gives value to that portion of his- 
tory which consists of spirited delineations of character 
and faithful and lively pictures of events among nations 
in a rude state of society. 

" That the study of the Old Northern tongue may 
have an important bearing on English grammar and 
etymology, will be obvious, when it is known that the 
Icelandic is most closely allied to the Anglo-Saxon, of 
which so few monuments are extant ; and a slight 
examination of its structure and remarkable syntactical 
character will satisfy the reader that it may well deserve 
the attention of the philologist." 

The excellent writer, Charles L. Brace, in speak- 
ing of Iceland, says : " The Congress, or ' Althing,' of 
the Icelanders, had many of the best political features 
which have distinguished parliamentary government in 
all branches of the Teutonic race since. Every free- 
holder voted in it, and its decisions governed all inferior 
courts. It tried the lesser magistrates, and chose the 
presiding officers of the colony. 

" To this remote island (Iceland) came, too, that re- 
markable profession, who v/ere at once the poets, his- 
torians, genealogists and moralists of the Norse race, 
the Skalds. These men, before writing was much in 
use, handed down by memory, in familiar and often 
alliterative poetry, the names and deeds of the brave 
Norsemen, their victories on every coast of Europe, 
their histories and passions, and wild deaths, their 
family ties, and the boundaries of their possessions, 
their adventures and voyages, and even their law and 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 113 

their mythology. In fact, all that history and legal doc- 
uments, and genealogical records and poetry transmit 
now, was handed down by these bards of the Norsemen. 
Iceland became their peculiar center and home. Here, 
in bold and vivid language, they recorded in works, 
which posterity will never let die, the achievements of 
the Vikings, the conquest of almost every peo2)le in 
Europe hij these vigorous pirates; their wild ventures, 
their contempt of pain and death, their absolute joy in 
danger, combat and difficulty. In these, the oldest re- 
cords of our {L e., the Americans') forefathers, will be 
found even among these wild rovers the respect for law 
which has characterized every branch of the Teutonic 
race since; here, and not in the Sioiss cantons, is the 
beginning of Parliament and Congress ; here, and not 
with the Anglo-Saxons, is the foundation of trial by jury; 
and here, among their most ungoverned wassail, is that 
high reverence for woman, which has again come forth by 
i7iheritance among the Anglo- Norse Americans. The 
ancestors (at least morally) of Ealeigh and Nelson, and 
Kane and Farragut, appear in these records, among 
these sea-rovers, whose passion was danger and venture 
on the waters. Here, too, among such men as the 
*Eaven Floki,' is the prototype of those American 
pioneers who follow the wild birds into pathless wilder- 
nesses to found new republics. A^id it is the Norse 
''udaV property, not the European feudal property, 
which is the model for the American descendants of the 
ancient Norseman. 

" In these Icelandic Sagas, too, is portrayed the deep 
moral sentiment which characterizes the most ancient 
mythology of the Teutonic races. Here we have no 
5* 



114 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

dissolute Pantheon, with gods revelling eternally in 
earthly vices, and the evils and wrongs of humanity 
continued forever. Even the ghosts of the Northmen 
have the muscle of the race ; they are no pale shadows 
flitting through the Orcus. The dead fight and eat with 
the vigor of the living. But there comes a dread time 
when destiny overtakes all, both human and divine 
beings, and the universe with its evil and wrong must 
perish (Eagnarokr). Yet even the crack of doom finds 
not the Norsemen timid or fearing. Gods and men die 
in the heat of the conflict ; and there survives alone, 
Baldur, the ' God of Love,' who shall create a new 
heaven and a new earth. 

" It is from Iceland that we get the wonderful poetic 
and mythologic collections of the Elder and Younger 
Eddas. In this remote island the original Norse lan- 
guage was preserved more purely than it was in Norway 
or Denmark, and the Icelandic literature shed a flood of 
light over a dark and barbarous age. Even now the 
modern Icelanders can read or repeat their most ancient 
Sagas with but little change of dialect. 

*' But to an Americcm, one of the most interesting 
gifts of Iceland to the world is the record of the dis- 
covery of Northern America by Icelandic rovers (?) near 
the year 1000. 

"We think few scholars can carefully read these Sagas, 
and the accompanying in regard to Greenland, without 
a conviction that the Icelandic and Norwegian Vikings 
did at that early period discover and land on the coast 
of our eastern States. * * * The shortest winter 
day is stated with such precision as to fix the lati- 
tude near the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 115 

* * * Iceland, then, has the honor of having discovered 
America. 

" That volcanic-raised island, with its mountains of 
ice and valleys of lava and ashes, has played no mean 
part in the world's history." — Christian Union^ July 15 ^ 
1874. 

The famous George Stephens, in his elaborate work 
on "Runic Monuments," having discussed the impor- 
tance of studying the Scandinavian languages in order 
that many of our fine old roots may again creep into 
circulation, says : " Let us (the English) study the Scan- 
dinavian languages, and ennoble and restore our mother 
tongue. Let the Scandinavians study Old English as 
well as their own ancient records, give up mere provincial 
views, and melt their various dialects into one* shining, 
rich, sweet and manly speech, as w^e have done in Eng- 
land. Their High Northern shall then live forever, the 
home language of eight millions of hardy freemen, our 
brothers in the east sea, our Warings and Guardsmen 
against the grasping clutches of the modern Hun and 
the modern Vandal. The time may come when the 
kingdom of Canute may be restored in a nobler shape, 
when the bands of Sea-kings shall rally round one 
Northern Union standard, when one scepter shall sway 
the seas and coasts of our forefathers from the Thames 
to the North Cape, from Finland to the Eider. 

" We have watered our mother tongue long enough 
with bastard Latin ; let us now brace and steel it with 
the life-water of our own sweet and soft and rich and 
shining and clear ringing and manly and world-ranging, 
ever dearest English ! " 



116 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

In his preface to his Icelandic grammar, Dr. G. W. 
Dasent says : " Putting aside the study of Old Norse 
for the sake of its magnificent literature, and consider- 
ing it merely as an accessory help for the English student, 
we shall find it of immense advantage, not only in trac- 
ing the rise of words and idioms, but still more in clear- 
ing up many dark points in our early history; in fact, 
so highly do I value it in this respect, that I cannot 
imagine it possible to write a satisfactory history of the 
Anglo-Saxon period without a thorough knowledge of 
the Old Norse literature." 

Dr. Dasent, in his introduction to Oleasby's and 
Vigfusson's Icelandic Dictionary, says of Iceland : " No 
other country in Europe possesses an ancient vernacular 
to be compared with this." And again: "Whether in 
a literary or in a philological point of view, no literature 
in Europe in the middle ages can compete in interest 
with that of Iceland. It is not certainly m forma pau- 
peris that she appears at the tribunal of learning." In 
another place he remarks : " In it (the Dictionary) the 
English student now possesses a key to that rich store of 
knowledge which the early literature of Iceland possesses. 
He may read the Eddas and Sagas, which contain sources 
of delight and treasures of learning such as no other 
language but that of Iceland possesses.' ' 

The distinguished German scholar, Ettmuller, in 
comparing the literature of the Anglo-Saxons with that 
of the Icelanders, says: "Neither the Goths, nor the 
Germans, nor the French, can be compared with the 
Anglo-Saxons in the cultivation of letters. By the Scan- 
dmavians alo?ie, they are not only equaled, but also sur- 



THP: SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 1 KT 

passed in literature." And again: " If the Scandinavians 
excel in lyric poetry, the Anglo-Saxons can boast of their 
epic poetry. If the famous island in the remote North- 
ern Sea applied itself with distinguished honor to his- 
torical studies, the isle of the Anglo-Saxons is especially 
entitled to praise from the fact that it produced orators, 
who, considering the time in which they lived, were de- 
cidedly excellent." 

Max MtJLLER, in his "Science of Language," says: 
" There is a third stream of Teutonic speech, which it 
v/ould be impossible to place in any but a co-ordinate 
position with regard to Grothic, Low and High German. 
This i» the Scandinavian branch." 

In Wheaton's "History of the Northmen," we find 
the following passages : " The Icelanders cherished and 
cultivated the language and literature of their ancestors 
with remarkable success. * * * jj^ Iceland an 
independent literature grew up, flourished, and was 
brought to a certain degree of perfection hefoi^e the re- 
vival of learning in the south of Europe.^' 

Robert Buchakan, the eminent English writer, in 
reviewing the modern Scandinavian literature, says: 
" While German literature darkens under the malignant 
star of Deutschthum, while French art, sickening of its 
long disease, crawls like a leper through the light and 
wholesome world, while all over the European continent 
one wan influence or another asserts its despair-engen- 
dering sway over books and men, whither shall a be- 
wildered student fly for one deep breath of pure air and 
wholesome ozone ? Goethe and Heine have sung their 



118 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAG-E8. 

best — and worst ; Alfred de Miisset is dead, and Victor 
Hugo is turned politician. Grillparzer is still a mystery, 
thanks partly to the darkening medium of Carlyle's 
hostile criticism. From the ashes of Teutonic tran- 
scendentalism rises Wagner like a Phoenix, — a bird too 
uncommon for ordinary comprehension, but to all in- 
tents and purposes an anomaly at best. One tires of 
anomalies, one sickens of politics, one shudders at the 
petticoat literature first created at Weimar ; and looking 
east and west, ranging with a true invalid's hunger the 
literary horizon, one searches for something more natu- 
ral, for some form of indigenous and unadorned love- 
liness, wherewith to fleet the time pleasantly, as they 
did in the golden world. 

" That something may be found without traveling 
very far. Turn northward, in the footsteps of Teufels- 
drochk, traversing the great valleys of Scandinavia, and 
not halting until, like the philosopher, you look upon 
'that slowly heaving Polar Ocean, over which in the 
utmost north the great sun hangs low.' Quiet and peace- 
ful lies Norway yet as in the world's morning. The 
flocks of summer tourists alight upon her shores, and 
scatter themselves to their numberless stations, without 
disturbing the peaceful serenity of her social life. * * * 
The government is a virtual democracy, such as would 
gladden the heart of Gambetta, the Swedish monarch's 
rule over Norway being merely titular. There are no 
hereditary nobles. There is no 'gag' on the press. 
Science and poetry alike flourish on this free soil. The 
science is grand as Nature herself, cosmic as well as 
microscopic. The poetry is fresh, light, and pellucid, 
worthy of the race, and altogether free from Parisian 
taint." 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LANC^HJAGES. 119 

" Bjornstjerne Bjornson,* one of the most emi- 
nent of living Norwegian authors, is something more 
than even the finest pastoral taleteller of this generation. 
He is a dramatist of extraordinary power. He does not 
possess the power of imaginative fancy shown by Werge- 
landf (in such pieces as Jan van Huysums Blomster- 
stykhe), nor Welhaven's]; refinement of phrase, nor the 
wild, melodious abandon of his greatest rival, the author 
of Peer Gyut ;\\ but, to my thinking at least, he stands 
as a poet in a far higher rank than any of these writers. 

" In more than one respect, particularly in the loose, 
disjointed structure of the piece, 'Sigurd Slembe' re- 
minds one of Goethe's ' Goetz/ but it deals with materials 
far harder to assimilate, and is on the whole a finer 
picture of romantic manners. Audhild (a prominent 
character in 'Sigurd Slembe') is a creation worthy of 
Goethe at his best ; worthy, in my opinion, to rank with 
Olaerchen, Marguerite and Mignon as a masterpiece of 
delicate characterization. And here I may observe, inci- 
dentally, that Bjornson excels in his pictures of delicate 

* Bjornstjerne Bjornson was born in 1832; has written several novels, 
dramas and epic poems. '■•Sigurd Slembe'''' is a drama, published in 1863, of 
which Robert Buchanan says: "It is, besides being a masterpiece by its 
author, a drama of which any living European author might be justly proud." 
Several of his novels, including ''Arne," "A Happy Boy,"' --The Fisher- 
maiden." have been translated into English. 

t Henrik Arnold Wergeland was born in 1808, and died in 1845. He is 
the Byron of the North. His works comprise nine ponderous volumes. He 
excelled in lyrics. 

X John Sebastian Welhaven, born in 1807, died in 1873. Remarkable for 
the elegance and chasteness of his style. No poet has more beautifully and 
correctly described the natural scenery of Norway. 

1! The author of "-Peer Gyuf' is Henrik Ibsen, born in 1828. Was en- 
gaged by Ole Bull as instructor at the theatre in Bergen, which position he 
occupied six years. He has written several dramatic works, chiefly of a 
polemic and exceedingly satirical nature. Many of his countrymen prefer 
Ibsen to Bjornson. His last work is "Reiser og Oalilcter.'''' 



120 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 

feminine types, — a proof, if proof were wanting, that he 
is worthy to take rank with the highest class of poetic 
creators." 

I might add to the above quotations from Max Mill- 
ler, the brothers Grimm and many other eminent writers ; 
but in the first place this article is long enough, and in 
the next place the works of the last named authors are 
accessible to all who may wish to investigate this sub- 
ject further. My object has been to show that, in the 
opinion of those who have studied the subject, the North 
has a history, language and literature deserving and 
amply rewarding some attention from American stu- 
dents. Of the good or ill performance of this task the 
reader, whom I earnestly request carefully to consider 
the contents of these pages, must be the judge. 



1 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS 6- CO., CHICAGO. 



ANDERSON'S NORSE MYTHOLOGY; or The Religion 

of Our Forefathers.— Containing ail the Myths of the Eddas carefully- 
systematized and interpreted, with an Introduction, Vocabulary and Index. — By 
R. B. Anderson, A. M., Professor of Scandinavian Languages, in the University 
of Wisconsin. Crown 8vo, cloth, $2 50 ; full gilt, ^3 00 ; half calf, $5 00. 

"Professor Anderson has produced a monograph which may be regarded as 
exhaustive in all its relations." — The New York Tribune. 

"A masterly work. . . No American book of recent years does equal credit 
to American scholarship, or is deserving of a more pronounced success." — Boston 
Globe. 

"I have been struck with the warm glow of enthusiasm pervading it, and with 
the attractiveness of its descriptions and discussions. I sincerely wish it a wide 
circulation and careful study." — William Dwight Whitney, Professor of Sanscrit 
and Comparative Philology, Yale College. 

"I like it decidedly. A mythologist must be not only a scholar but a bit of a 
poet, otherwise he will never understand that petrified poetry out of which the 
mythology of every nation is built up. You seem to me to have that gift of poetic 
divination, and, therefore, whenever I approach the dark runes of the Edda, I shall 
gladly avail myself of your help and guidance." 

Yours truly, F. Max Midler, University of Oxford. 

"We have never seen so complete a view of the religion of the Norsemen. 
The Myths which Prof. Anderson has translated for us are characterized by a wild 
poetry and by suggestions of strong thought. We see images of singular beauty 
in the landscape of ice and snow. Sparks of fire are often struck out from these 
verses of flint and steel." — Bibliotheca Sacra. 

"Professor Anderson is an enthusiastic as well as an able scholar ; and he 
imparts his enthusiasm to his readers. His volume is deeply interesting as well as 
in a high degree instructive. No such account of the old Scandinavian Mythology 
has hitherto been given in the English language. It is full, and elucidates the 
subject in all points of view. It contains abundant illustrations in literal and 
poetic translations from the Eddas and Sagas, . . Professor Anderson's inter- 
pretations of the myths throw new light upon them, and are valuable additions (as is 
the whole work) to the history of religion and of literature. . . It deserves to 
be welcomed, not only as most creditable to American scholarship, but also as an 
indication of the literary enterprise which is surely growing up in our North-western 
States." — The Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review. 

AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS.-A 

Historical Sketch of the Discovery of America by the Norsemen in the loth cent- 
ury. By Prof. R. B. Anderson, of the University of Wisconsin, with an Appendix 
on the Historical, Literary and Scientific value of the Scandinavian Languages. 

Price, 12mo, cloth $1 00 

"A valuable addition to American history. The object is fully described in its 
title page, and the author's narrative is very remarkable. * * * The book is 
full of surprising statements, and will be read with something like wonderment."— 
Notes and Queries, London. 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GBIGGS &- CO., CHICAGO. 

VIKING TALES OF THE NORTH.-The Sagas of Thorstein,Vik- 
ing's Son, and Fridthjof the Bold. Translated from the Icelandic by Prof. R. B. 
Anderson, Author of "Norse Mythology," and Jon Bjarnason. Also, Stephens's 
translation of Tegner's '" Fridthjof's Saga." Complete in one volume, 12mo, 
Cloth, $2.00. 

"A charming book it is. Your work is in every-way cleverly done. * * 
The quaintly, delightful sagas ought to charm many thousands of readers, and your 
translation is of the hest."—Willard Fiske, M. A., Ph. D., Prof, of the North 
European Languages, Cornell University. 

"This work, as a whole, will please and instruct all classes of readers, and espe- 
cially those who wish to search out the antiquities of Scandinavian literature. But 
every one will be struck with the majesty and force of that old poetry of the north." 
— The Churchman, New York. 

"The literal translations of Anderson and Bjarnason are full of interest of a rare 
kind. * * Whoever fails to read them, will lose a rare fund of that peculiar wealth 
of thought and feeling which is suggested by the earlier, simpler life of mankind." — 
The Christian Union, New York. 

"Prof Anderson's book is a very valuable and important one. The 'Saga of 
Thorstein, Viking's Son,' *v * teems with magnificently dramatic situations, the 
impressiveness of which are rather increased by the calm directness and dignity with 
which they are related. And these features are as characteristic of the English ver- 
sion as of the Icelandic originals. The translator shows an intimate acquaintance 
with all the intricacies of that cruelly inflected language, and an enthusiastic appre- 
ciation of its epigrammatic pith and vigor. * * TegneVs celebrated poem 'Fridth- 
jof's Saga,' is sufficiently novel in its theme and abounding in melody and rhythm 
to yield a large measure of enjoyment." — The Nation, New York. 



i 



FRIDTHJOF'S SAGA.— A Norse Romance. By Esaias Tegner 
Translated from the Swedish by Thos. A. E. Holcomb and Martha A, Lyon 
HoLCOMB. One volume, 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

"Its beauties are innumerable. The grand old Viking spirit glows in every line." 
— Christian Leader., N, Y. 

'"Fridthjof's Saga' so beautifully embalmed in English verse, must become a 
household treasure among lovers of elegant and curious literature." — St. Louis 

Times. 

"No one can peruse this noble poem without arising therefrom with a loftier idea 
of human bravery and a better conception of human love." — Inter-Oceati^ Chicago. 

"Wherever one opens the poem he is sure to light upon passages of exquisite 
beauty. Longfellow styles it the noblest poetic contribution which Sweden has yet 
made to the literary history of the world." — Church Journal, New York. 

" 'Fridthjof s Saga' is an interesting story, told with great skill, tenderness and 
picturesque language, while the characters are discriminated with a talent worthy 
of the most observant student of human nature. * * * Sweden in the person of 
Bishop Tegner, offers the true poet, who, in describing the struggles of souls, has 
produced an immortal poem. * * The Holcomb translation is so well done that 
It would be difficult to better it in any single xt.%^^z\.."— Boston Gazette. 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS &^ CO., CHICAGO. 



THE PILOT AND HIS WIFE.-By Jonas Lie. Translated from 
the Norse by Mrs, Ole Bull. 12mo, Cloth. $1.50. 

"The book abounds in a rare poetic iorcQ."— The Nation. 

"Lie is a novelist of very marked g&n\us."— North American Rev ie-.v. 

"It opens to English readers new and vivid fields oiromdincQ."— Hartford Post. 

'•'It. fascinates the attention and moves the feelings with a strange power, and 
when the book is finished it is easy to realize th*at we have been under the spell of a 
ms.sie^r. " —A/>pletoti' s Jourtial. 

"In manner, plot and treatment, it is so totally different from all other writings 
as to excite the liveliest interest. * * Lie is a writer of marked peculiarities and 
rare genius. His dramatic powers are intense, but his presentations of the passions 
and inspirations, the workings of heart, and the struggles of soul, are more vivid and 
striking still. * * The beauty and poetry of the novel is found in the literary 
workmanship which gives us the character of 'Elizabeth.' It is essentially an orig- 
inal character, and a pure and noble conception."— 5acra»x^«^^ Daily Union. 

"It is a remarkably attractive book. * * Some of the characters are exqui- 
sitely drawn, notably those of the pilot and his wife Elizabeth. The latter is a 
delightful creature. The reader cannot but be struck by the intense power with 
which the author manages the pathetic incidents of his story, and with the natural- 
ness that pervades the whole. The artistic workmanship will strike every person of 
thought and culture, while the vivid descriptions in the more exciting portions will 
fully absorb the attention of those who read only for amusement. There is a fresh- 
ness and originality in the book, an out-door flavor and breeziness, that cannot fail 
to win for it a high degree of fsivor."— Boston Gazette. 



PETERSON'S NORWEGIAN -DANISH GRAMMAR 

AN D READER.— With a Vocabulary, designed for American Students of the 
Norwegian-Danish Language. By Rev. C. I. P. Peterson, Professor of Scandina- 
vian Literature. 12mo, Cloth. $1.25. 

"I may say that I have myself read through the Norwegian-Danish Grammar 
of Peterson, and when I affirm that I find myself able to translate the reading exer- 
cises with great readiness, it may be inferred how well the book is adapted to for- 
ward one in a knowledge of this interesting but neglected language."— .4. Winchell, 
LL.D. Professor in Vanderbilt University, late Chancellor of the University oj 
Syracuse. 

"I rejoice to see the door opened to American Students to the treasures of Nor- 
wegian letters, and in so attractive a manner as in Mr. Peterson's work. No more 
useful direction for philological study opens to English scholars now than the re- 
search into Anglo-Saxon and Norse Northern tongues. This work will be surely a 
valuable help in this direction."— /'r^/. Frank Sewell, President of Urbana Uni- 
versity. 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS &- CO., CHICAGO. 

GETTING OW IN THE WORLD; or, Hints on Suc- 
cess in Life.— By Wm. Mathews, LL.D., Professor of English Literature 
etc., in the University of Chicago. Beautifully printed and handsomely bound. 

Price, I vol., lamo.. Cloth $2 I Half calf binding, gilt top $3 50 

The same, gilt edges 250 | Full calf, gilt edges 500 

Contents : — Success and Failure — Good and Bad Luck— Choice of a Pro- 
jfession — Physical Culture — Concentration — Self- Reliance — Originality in 
Ai?ns and Methods— Attention to Details — Practical Talent — Decision — 
Manner — Business Habits — Self-Advertising — The Will and the Way — 
Reserved Power — Econojny of Time — Money, its Use and Abuse — Mercantile 
Failures — Over-Work and Under-Rest — True and False Success. 

" A book in the highest degree attractive, * * and which will be sure to fay 
itt dollars and cents many times over the cost of the work, and the time devoted 
to its perusal." — Lockport Journal, New York. 

•■' It is sound, morally and mentally. It gives no one-sided view of life ; it does 
not pander to the lower nature ; but it is high-toned, correctly toned throughout. 
* * There is an earnestness and even eloquence in this volume which makes 
the author appear to speak to us from the living page. It reads like a speech. 
There is an electric fire about every sentence." — Episcopal Register, Philadelphia. 

" There is no danger of speaking in too high terms of praise of this volume. 
As a work of art it is a gem. As a counselor it speaks the wisdom of the ages. As a 
teacher it illustrates the true philosophy of life by the experience of eminent men of 
every class and calling. It warns by the story of signal failures, and encourages by 
the record of triumphs that seemed impossible. It is a book of facts and not of 
theories. The men who have succeeded in life are laid under tribute, and made to 
divulge the secret of their success. They give vastly more than * hints ;' thej'^ 
make a revelation. They show that success lies not in luck, but in pluck. 
Instruction and inspiration are the chief features of the work which Prof. Mathews 
has done in this volume." — Christian Era, Boston. 



I 



THE GREAT CONVERSERS, and Other Essays- 

By Wm. Mathews, LL.D., author of "• Getting On in the World." 

I volume, i2mo., 306 pages, with Map, price -fi 75 

" As fascinating as anything in fiction." — Concord Monitor. 

" These pages are crammed with interesting facts about literary men and lite- 
rary work." — New York Evening Mail. 

'' They are written in that charming and graceful style, which is so attractive 
in this author's writings, and the reader is continually reminded by their ease and 
grace of the elegant compositions of Goldsmith and Irving." — Boston Transcript. 

" Twenty essays, all treating lively and agreeable themes, and in the easy, 
polished and sparkling style that has made the author famous as an essayist. * * 
The most striking characteristic of Prof. Mathews' writing is its wonderful wealth 
of illustration. * * One will make the acquaintance of more authors in the 
course of a single one of his essays than are probably to be met with in the same 
limited space anywhere else in the whole realm of our literature."— 77/^ Chicago 
Tribune. 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS 6- CO., CHICAGO. 



WORDS; THEIR USE AND ABUSE, By Prof. Wm. Mathews, 
Author of "Getting on in the World," "The Great Conversers," Etc., $2 00. 

"A book of rare xuterent.^^— Brooklyn Eagle. 
"Every page sparkles with literary gems," — The Interior, 
"An interesting, well-written and instructive \o\viV[i&." —Independent^ N. V. 
"Every literary man and woman should read it.'' — Sunday Times, N. V. 
"A valuable companion for writers, talkers and people gQnGvaWy."— Boston 
journal. 

"Although written for popular reading, they are scholarly and instructive, and 
in a very high degree entertaining. No one can turn to a single pag« of the book with- 
out finding something worth reading and worth remembering. It is a book both for 
Mbraries and general reading, as scholars will not disdain its many valuable illustra- 
ions, while the rising writer will find in it a perfect wealth of rules and suggestions 
to help him form a good style of ^■x.-pr&s%\ovi." —Publishers' Weekly, New York. 

"To this large class, (the great body of our people in every rank, occupation 
and profession) it will prove a most entertaining recreation and useful study. Young 
men in higher schools, academies and colleges will also find it a useful and helpful 
guide, which will not only save them from committing vulgar solecisms and awkward 
verbal improprieties, but from contracting vicious habits that will stick to them, if 
once suffered to be formed, like the shirt of Nessus." — Christian hitelligencer ,New 
York. 

"The final chapter on 'Common Improprieties of Speech' should be printea in 
tract form. . , . We should like to put a copy of this book into the hands oi every 
man and woman wi\io is using or intends to use, our good old Anglo-Saxon with 
voice or pen for any public service. It is a textbook, full of information, and con- 
tains hints, rules, criticisms and illustrations, whichauthenticatetheir own value." — 
Christian at Work, Ne%v York 



TWO YEARS ir^ CALIFORNIA, By Mary Cone. With 15 fine 
engravings, a map of California, and a plan of the Yosemite Valley. Cloth ^1.75 

"One of the most reliable and authentic works on California yet issued." — Sun- 
day Times, New York. 

"One of the best descriptions of the Golden State that has met our eye, . . 
unbiassed, impartial, and intelligent." — Christian at Work, Neiv York. 

"This is a book of absorbing interest. . . No description can do justice to 
it. Every page deserves to be read and studied." — Albany jlournal, 

"It would be diiiRcult to compress within the same limits more really valuable 
information on the subject treated than is here given." — Morning Star^ Boston. 

"Will be of much value to every one who contemplates either visiting or emi- 
garting to California." — New York Evening Mail. 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS 6- CO., CHICAGO. 
PRE-HISTORIC RACES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

By J. W. Foster, LL.D., Author of " The Physical Geography of the Mississippi 
Valley," etc. 415 pages, crown 8vo, with a large number of illustrations. 

Price, cloth - $3 50 

Half calf binding, gilt top 6 00 

Full calf, gilt edges 7 50 

" One of the best and clearest accounts we have seen of those grand monuments 
of a forgotten race." — London Saturday Review. 

" The reader will find it more fascinating than his last favorite novel." — 
Eclectic Magazine^ N, Y. 

"The book is literally crowded with astonishing and valuable facts,"— 
Boston Post. 

" It is an elegant volume and a valuable contribution to the subject. * * * 
Contains just the kind of information in clear, compressed and intelligible form, 
which is adapted to the mass of readers." — Appyton''s Popular Science Monthly. 

" The book is typographically perfect, and with its admirable illustrations and 
convenient index is really elegant and a sort of luxury to possess and read. * * 
Dr. Foster's style reminds us of Tyndall and Proctor, at their best. * * He 
goes over the ground, inch by inch, and accumulates information of surprising 
interest and importance, bearing on this subject, which he gives in his crowded but 
most instructive and entertaining chapters in a thoroughly scientific but equally 
popular way. We have marked whole pages of his book for quotation, and finally 
from sheer necessity have been compelled to put the whole volume in quotation 
marks, as one of the few books that are indispensable to the student, and scarcely 
less important for the intelligent reader to have at hand for reference." — Golden 
Age., New York. 



A MANUAL OF GESTURE.- With over loo Figures, 
embracing a complete system of Notation, with the Principles of Interpretation 
and Selections for Practice, By Prof. A. M. Bacon. 

Price $1 75 

" Prof. Bacon has given us a work that, in thoroughness and practical value, 
deserves to rank among the most remarkable books of the season. There has in 
fact, been no work on the subject yet offered to the public which approaches it for 
exhaustiveness and completeness of detail. * * It is of the utmost value, 
not merely to students, but to lawyers, clergymen, teachers, and public speakers, 
and its importance as an assistant in the formation of a correct and appropriate 
style of action can hardly be over-ostimated." — The PKiladelphia Inquirer. 

''Prof. Bacon's Manual seems expressly arranged for the help of those who 
study alone and have undertaken self-instruction in the art of persuasive delivery. 
The work in the hands of our ministry, well studied, would have the effect of 
emphasizing the living words of the Gospel all over the land, and making them 
two-edged with meaning." — The Chicago Pulpit. 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS &- CO., CHICAGO. 

ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER, For Deliberative Assemblies.- 
By Major H. M, Robert, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. Pocket size, cloth, 75 cents. 

This book is far superior to any other parliamentary manual in the English 
language. It gives in the simplest form possible all the various rules or points of 
law or order that can arise in the deliberations of any lodge, grange, debating 
club, literary society, convention, or other organized body, and every rule is com- 
plete in itself, and as easily found as a word in a dictionary. Its crowning excel- 
lence is a " Table of Rules relating to Motions," on two opposite pages which 
contains the answers to more than two hundred questions on parliamentary law, 
which will be of the greatest value to every member of an assembly. 

" It should be studied by all who wish to become familiar with the correct 
usages of public meetings." — E. O, Haven, D. D., Chancellor of Syracuse Unu 
versity. 

"It seems much better adapted to the use of societies and assemblies than 
either Jefferson's Manual or Cushing's." — J. M. Gregory, LL. D., late President 
of the Illinois Industrial University. 

" I shall be very glad to see your Manual brought into general use, as I am 
sure it must be, when its great merit and utility become generally known. — Hon. 7. 
M. Cooley, LL. D , author of ' Cooley's Blackstone,' " etc. 

" After carefully examining it and comparing it with several other books having 
the same object in view, I am free to say that it is, by far, the best of all. The 
'Table of Rules ' is worth the cost of the work." — Thomas Bowtnan, D. Z?., 
Bishop of Baltimore M. E. Conference. 

"This capital little manual will be found exceedingly useful by all who are 
concerned in the organization or management of societies of various kinds. . . . 
If we mistake not, the book will displace all its predecessors, as an authority on 
parliamentary usages." — New York World, 

"I admire the plan of your work, and the simplicity and fidelity with which 
you have executed it. It is one of the best compendiums of Parliamentary Law 
that I have seen, and exceedingly valuable, not only for the matter usually 
embraced in such a book, but for its tables and incidental matter, which serve 
greatly to adapt it to common use." — Dr. D, C. Eddy, Speaker of the Massachu- 
setts House of Representatives. 



MISHAPS OF MR. EZEKIEL PELTER.-Hiustrated. 

l?mo, cloth $1.50. 

" So ludicrous are the vicissitudes of the much-abused Ezekiel, and so much of 
human nature and every-day life intermingle, that it will be read with a hearty zest 
for its morals, while the humor is irresistible. If you want to laugh at something 
new, a regular side-plitter, get this book." — The Evangelist, St. Louis. 

" We have read Ezekiel. We have laughed and cried over its pages. It grows 
in interest to the last sentence. The story is well told, and the moral so good, that 
we decidedly like and commend iX.'''— Pacific Baptist, San Francisco. 



PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS &^ CO., CHICAGO. 
PH-ILOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION.- 

By Rev. J. B. Walker, D.D., with an Introductory Essay b}^ Calvin E. Stowe, 
D.D. A new edition, with supplementary chapter by the author. Sixty-seventh 
thousand, i vol. nmo. Price, $1.50. 

" Though written with great simplicity, it is evidently the production of a 
mastermind. * * and few works are more adapted to bring skeptics of a certain 
class to a stand. * * It is the disclosure of the actual process of mind through 
which the author passes, from the dark regions of doflbt and infidelity to the clear 
light and conviction of a sound and heartfelt belief of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

" There is in many parts of this treatise, a force of argument and a power of 
conviction almost resistless. 

"It is a work of extraordinary power. * * We think it is more likely to 
lods^e an impression in the human consciettce, in favor of the divine authority 
of Christianity., than any work of the modern ^r ess.''— London Evangelical 
Magazine, England. 

" No single volume we ever read has been so satisfactory a demonstration of 
the truth of religion, or has had so strong a controlling influence over our habits 
of thought. * * No better book can be put into the hands of the honest and 
intellectual skeptic. It is overwhelmingly convincing to reason, and leaves the 
doubter nothing but his passions and prejudices to bolster him up. * * Every 
minister's library siiould have a copy."— Z/z^ Methodist Protestant., Baltimore. 

" It fills a place in theological literature which no other book does. It is the 
style of the argument which gives power, impressiveness, and perennial freshness 
to this production. * * We have found in pastoral experience that we could 
place no better uninspired book than this in the hands of intelligent doubters, or 
in the hands of new converts, for their aid and guidance. Those who are not 
familiar with it, will do well to procure a copy and study it carefully. It is worth 
more than some large libraries to those who read for their profiting." — The Christ- 
ian at Work, New York. 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLYSPIRIT; Or Phih 
osophy of the Divine Operation in the Redemption 

of Man. — Being volume second of" The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation." 
By Rev. J. B. Walker, D.D. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged. Price, 

$1.50. 

" The author's former able works have prepared the public for the rich treas- 
ures of thought in this volume. It is a book of foundation principles, and deals in 
the verities of the gospel as with scientific facts. It is an unanswerable argument 
in behalf of Christ's life, mission, and doctrine, and especially rich in its teachings 
concerning the office and work of the Spirit. No volume has lately issued from the 
press which brings so many timely truths to the public attention. While it is 
metaphysical and thorough, it is also clever, forceful, winning for its grand truth's 
sake, and every way readable. The author has wrought a great work for the 
Christian Church, and every minister atid teacher should arm himself with 
strong weapons by perusing the arguments of this book. It is printed and bound 
in the exquisite style of all publications which issue from Messrs. S. C. Griggs & Co.'s 
establishment."— iJ/^//i^^zj/ Recorder .^ Pittsburgh, 




t,s 






f 



